Bluebeard's Wife (YoIThe Boy 2016 fusion)
by allollipoppins97
Summary: At least the final girl had the assurance that she would die in her new husband's castle, young and beautiful and hanged next to the other wives in the attic. Victor isn't so predictable. Victor's house, Victor's rules. Victor's Yuuri. If he plays his part, then maybe he can come out of it alive. Or, a day goes by in the Doll House, and Yuuri watches. Victuuri with Dark!Victor.
1. Certain as the Sun

"Wake up Yuuri."

"Yuuri, wake up."

"I said WAKE UP."

Yuuri blinks owlishly at the clock on the beside table. 9 AM, the arms indicate, the thinnest following its course and thumping at every mark with enough strength to break the silence filling his mind. It's too early or too late, too bright for English countryside. He misses most of it though. The shape on his back shadows most of the morning light, and his pillow pressed to his cheek drowns the rest. The corners of his eyes feel dry, glued together, his eyelashes shielding him.

" _Wake up Yuuri! Breakfast is waiting."_ his mother's voice chimes, a distant memory he hasn't heard or thought of in ages.

When did he last hear it? Face to face, phone to phone, screen to screen?

Heaven knows. The lilt of her voice, her dulcet tones, lost to the static and the breeze, shrill and reduced to a music note he can thump on countless times on the living room piano. Out of tune like the rest of the house, otherworldly. Lost in time and space.

Has he slept at all? He wonders. The drowsiness he had been feeling these past days – or rather what feels like weeks, months even – has progressively evacuated his body through the night, yet lingers. Tension keeps him frozen and trapped where he is, eyes heavy with knowledge and the weight of what they saw unravel before them. Even the screams in his head are dulled background noises, the prick of a needle that has lost its sting but keeps him on his toes. His legs, his arms nestled in the king-sized bed float on the mattress, tip-toeing on the edge of water and earth. Gravity pulls at him from all sides. Either he drowns or he falls. Neither outcome is particularly welcome.

Victor ruffles the covers slightly as he drifts to consciousness, his voice no more than a grunt of protest muffled against Yuuri's shoulder. The movement brings him closer to the Japanese man, left arm tightening around Yuuri's waist and the other brushing the crown of his black hair. His right hand is close enough for Yuuri to see, right next to his temple. Large, calloused and dirty, the palm and nails smeared with dust. It looks awkward on the silken pillow, the stain on an otherwise perfect tableau, and yet it belongs there. Coarse and emerging from the depths like a sea monster, snow-white limb on the hunt.

They lie in bed, huddled together in the comfort of the bed sheets and duvet.

Normally the warmth seeping through his body would be most welcome. Yuuri had spent countless nights sleeping next to someone before, not as often as he would have liked, but often enough for the gesture to reach a degree of intimacy that he can only share with certain people.

Like Mari, his big sister who had opened her arms to him many times in the past when the nightmares kept him awake.

Like Phichit, whose tentative embraces became more self-assured as years passed by, as their relationship morphed from simply roommates to friends to something else, unlabeled. Enough for Yuuri to discover that the juncture between his collarbone and his neck was his most sensitive spot, that he liked to be held from behind, that he felt protected enough for physical contact to be deemed acceptable and pleasant.

Like Yuri, who would put his arms around him in that rather brusque manner of his, almost af if he were forcing himself. But Yuuri knew better. Yuri, who would gradually relax against him whilst also holding onto him like a lifeline.

Who wouldn't be touching him anymore in his way of loving him.

The arms that surround him, however, are loving. If only a parody of the feeling.

Yuuri nearly jumps when Victor's hand brushes his shoulder. He internally congratulates himself on not moving, still as a dead man under the covers.

Victor, however, is feeling restless this morning.

Victor's fingers, feather-light and cold at the tip, brush a path from his shoulder to his side, gliding with languor. A shiver runs through his spine when his fingertips settle on the junction between chest and lower half of his body, then run along his hip. Victor's hand comes to rest on the curve, his grip loose enough to keep Yuuri there pressed against his body, but just the right amount of steady to assert dominance of him. Possession.

" _Do you want to play with me, Yuuri?"_

"Yuuri."

Victor's muffled voice seeps in his consciousness and jolts him awake without a sound, without a movement.

His body presses closer to Yuuri, breaching the distance between them far more than should be humanly possible. The hard curve of him, lean and taut like a piano cord, looms by his side. Porcelain grazes his nape, chipped and cool against his skin, in a parody of a kiss from a lover to another, playing and testing the nerves and flesh like a violinist his instrument. The silver curls jutting from under the mask tease at his neck. Yuuri distractedly thinks of Makkachin's fur under his fingers, the long strands unfurling between his fingers as he combed through them and scratched at his the dog's head.

But Makkachin won't keep Victor away from him. No one could.

Victor had shown him as much at a cost.

Yuuri freezes when something firm start to grind against him. He's wearing only his nightclothes, an oversized t-shirt and his boxers, while Victor lies completely bare beside him, unaffected by the cooler temperatures but seeking his heat nevertheless.

He hadn't tried anything last night, the first night they'd shared a bed. Or rather he had made a move, only to be rejected by Yuuri and obedient, like a good boy. But how could he be sure that Victor wouldn't try again, or that he'd listen to him at all?

Victor is rutting against him, impatient as ever with his hard cock pressed between Yuuri's cheeks.

He rubs his legs together, putting as much space between him and Victor as he can. Closing them however only makes them rub against each other more, Victor molding his body with Yuuri's. The friction causes shivers to run down his spine and in his toes as Victor's hands come to rest under Yuuri's shirt, exploring the skin of his abdomen and threatening to venture further up and down. Yuuri's breath catches in his throat. To his dismay, he can feel himself hardening in response.

"No."

He doesn't realize the words came from him until he said it, voice hoarse from lack of use and almost burning his vocals cords.

Victor stills behind him, his hands still resting atop his stomach. Yuuri holds his breath, unmoving and anticipating. When Yuuri didn't speak any further Victor tentatively spread his palms again over his belly.

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut. Part of him shivers from the physical contact, anxious of the premises and the outcomes. Part of him is also starting to get annoyed. A familiar spark that forces him to inhale through his nose, breath locked in his lungs. He doesn't trust his words, and he doesn't trust Victor's reaction either.

"I said "no," Victor." Yuuri puts as much steel in his voice as he can muster, lips pressed in a hard line on his face. Victor's glass-like eyes don't leave his face for one second, unreadable beneath the porcelain mask that shadows the rest of his face. Instead of staring back, Yuuri focuses on the light bathing the room and seeping through the curtains over Victor's shoulder, specks of dust dancing within the rays of morning sun. Clouds obscure the last beams, casting a shadow on the mask. It cuts through the surface like a knife, swift and momentary, but never once breaks the gaze Victor stares at Yuuri with. Like the sea before the storm.

"You're still dirty, Victor" Yuuri tries infusing authority into his tone, sharp and controlled. "Shower first, then breakfast." He almost prides himself on the fact that his voice doesn't waver too much, as steady as the grip Victor has on him.

Somehow, it helped that he wasn't wrong either. Dried blood stained Victor's shirt and mask, some of it caked underneath his nails. The rest of him was clean as far as Yuuri could tell without letting his eyes stray away from the Russian's face, but if he leaned in, buried himself in the crook of Victor's neck, he was certain he would find the unmistakable scent of sweat and soil, and probably even blood or something far more crass.

Yuuri didn't dare to move as Victor backed away from him, eyes still locked with his own. He removed his grasp from him, palms wide open and fingertips grazing Yuuri's skin before they reluctantly parted from it, as if afraid that he would vanish as soon as he would stop touching him. With equal apathy and slowness, he brought himself to his knees and slid out of bed backwards, rising from the sheets and coming to stand before Yuuri. He brought his hands to his sides, letting them fall heavily as they bundled into fists, and he raised himself to his full height. His head remained a little hunched as he stared back at Yuuri.

As he stood back to the curtains and the cloudy sky, bathed in the remains of the sun in his full glory, he looked all the more the picture of a wrathful god .


	2. Rising in the East

They pass by Victor's room without stopping. The door is ajar, light peeking out from the doorway, but Yuuri neither dares nor needs to peek inside.

He knows for a fact that the bed sheets are definitely intact, unslept in. When he had sent Victor to bed last night and half-sprinted to his own room, there had been no sounds coming from Victor's room. Yuuri had lain in his bed, straining his ear to catch Victor's movements through the paper-thin walls of the house.

When none came, he had thought that maybe, just maybe, Victor had fallen asleep. His heart raced at the thought. Now, if never, was the moment. If he was careful, if he waited just a little longer, he could make his escape. He could run for the front door and make it to Yuri's car, left at the entrance of the Nikiforov mansion, keys still in the ignition, and make it to town. With luck Yuri had left their plane tickets in the glove compartment and he could drive off directly to the airport and leave everything behind him.

All hopes he could have nurtured shattered when the rustle of clothes made themselves heard. Cloth against clothes, cloth against skin, cloth pooling on the floor. The clinking of an unbuckled belt, the metallic thump it made when it fell to the ground, joining what he guessed were the slap of the shoes Victor had gone to bed with, laces hissing as they were snapped from their bows and tangled on hardwood.

He would come for him. He was coming for him. Yuuri hadn't locked the door nor turned off his light, knowing that doing the opposite would only spur Victor's madness.

The doorknob gave way in the corridor, squeaking in low-pitched wails like the rest of the house. Wood creaks softly under Victor's feet, shadows moves under Yuuri's door before they finally stop, the tip of Victor's bare toes peeking before his door.

In spite of his stature, Victor moved like a mouse, far more quietly that Yuuri could ever have managed in his dance shoes. Even with his form currently looming behind him at arm's length, he can't hear him walk over his own steps. Their intertwined fingers is his sole reminder that he is flesh and bone, and not just a figment of his imagination.

His presence alone exudes confidence, a power which Yuuri cannot put into words without picturing Victor as anything other than human. The figure that slips inside his room and under the covers, pale as a ghost and smelling of death cannot be human.

Like the Red Dragon presenting before his lady, basking in the light of the Woman clothed in Sun, reverent and predatorial all at once.

Are you really the dragon and I your damsel in distress, Yuuri wonders idly as he guides them to the bathroom. The door isn't far away from his room, but it still feels as if they've walked for hours. He almost startles from seeing it where it last was, and always had been, as if it had never been there in his imagination in the first place.

The young Japanese turns on the light and is assaulted by how blind the room is upon entering it. His eyes squint against the light, taking in how white the bathroom actually is. He had never paid much thought to it before, having been too busy worrying about his new station and careful not to damage anything with his clumsy hands. Now, after... everything... it all seemed overly clean. A room tiled with ivory-colored slabs frol ceiling to floor, with a sink and a bathtub to match.

He turns back to Victor, still holding his hand in the doorway. Morning shade hovered at his back, drowning the hallway but not venturing into the bathroom. Victor stares back at him with that unreadable expression that threatens to drown him.

"Come on in then," he whispers tonelessly, squeezing his fingers and tugging him gently towards the bathtub.

When he realizes what he just did he wants to slap himself. How stupid. Who is he even to tell Victor to follow him into the bathroom? There is nothing Victor hasn't seen before. This is his house, after all. His manor, the one that he grew in since his most tender age and has lived in throughout all of adulthood. The house that he never left, nor will ever leave. The house that saw him live and die.

Except that he shouldn't be alive.

The only Victor Nikiforov Yuuri knows is a doll, the very one whom he'd been tasked with taking care of for the past month, its head smashed to a jigsaw of ceramic dust and crystal balls in the underground living room.

The one facing him should be six feet under. Instead he is life given human shape from inanimation.

Victor, if he seems to notice his inner turmoil, is either too polite or too absorbed in his own thoughts to notice. His only reassurance was that he complied easily with what he said.

Victor lets himself be manhandled inside the bathroom and made to sit on the edge of the tub. His face moves slightly from side to side, eyeing the fingers Yuuri presses to his sides to sit him down. The mask moves back on itself to face the younger man again, as if pulled by an invisible string. His eyes are magnetic, in their own right. Once he could have gazed into them forever. Now he just wishes they'd let him come up for air.

Even sitting, Victor Nikiforov's gaze has the power to pin him down right where he stands. He's surprised to find he can still move under the scrutiny, his legs shaking from under him, tights trembling and feet on the brink of slipping on the tiles from how much he's sweating. He can't look away, won't look away. Yuuri's cheeks flush when he realizes just what position they're currently in. Victor, sitting before him with his legs spread wide, with Yuuri a short distance away from being between them. He forces himself to not let his eyes waver downwards, below Victor's bust.

All he wants is to snatch that bloody mask away, to tear it off his face, see for himself if it is directly glued to him or if some string holds it back, to listen to Victor's surprised yelp at being caught, to hear him scream as his most precious – his last, his only – possession gets smashed to pieces on the floor of his own bathroom. See how it feels to have everything taken from him, to feel what it truly feels like to be naked for the world to see.

And yet he doesn't.

Instead he takes a deep breath, and asks: "I'll shave you, if that's alright?"

Victor's shoulders visibly tense for a moment, until he releases his own mental grasp and lets them fall back, palms settling back on the outline of the tub. His heavy nod beckons Yuuri to come closer.

His footsteps back away still and all, screeching on the tiles as he retrocedes to the chest above the sink. Yuuri catches sight of his reflection as he opens the cabinet; there are pockets under his eyes, the balls of them ready to pop out from under his lids. He grimaces at how exhausted and crippled he looks, in spite of not feeling particularly tired. It seems like the night, instead of wearing him out, only made him more alert to his surroundings.

Yuuri makes quick work of exploring the drawer, his eyes catching sight of a bottle of shaving cream. Yakov Felstman's, no doubt. He couldn't picture Victor taking his mask every so often to groom his beard, if the burn left along his nape was a hint of its own.

He roams the contents of the cabinet with hasty glances, impatience making him giddy. The soft breathing only a few feet away from him is a constant reminder to _hurry the fuck up_ , why must it take him so much damn time to find a goddamn razor, is he really as blind as a mouse or what –

The ball that began to form at the back of his throat vanishes as soon as it came when he catches sight of it.

A straight razor, the kind he'd only find in the antiqued barbershops of Hasetsu or at the back of his father's drawer. Sitting on its leather pouch, but clean as a whistle and without a speck of dust visible on the blade.

Hesitantly Yuuri reaches out to seize it, fingertips brushing the retracted blade and moving to close it into his palm, rolling and clutching it, cradling him as if it were worth gold. A souvenir from Victor's father, he guesses, well-kept in the drawer with the rest of the Nikiforovs' abandoned supplies.

The razor sits in his hand with a perfect fit, the wooden handle going from the tip of his middle finger to the beginning of the vein in his wrist, glistening as he turns it from side to side. He brings his left thumb to the side of the blade, the nail sliding into the heart where spine and scales connected, and lifts. His face stares back at him, from heel to face of the edge.

Gulping slightly, Yuuri closes his trembling hand on the blade, pushing it back inside. He spins back on his heels and advances towards the older man still awaiting him, like a man scared to make the injured bird fly away, or the little animal scurry back to the safety of its home.

Without once breaking eye contact, blade and shaving cream firmly in hand, he bends the knee and slides above Victor. The bathtub is rather low, or Victor is much taller than he'd given him credit for as they come face to face. The other's breath burns through his clothes as he lowers his body to the ground, ribcages nearly pressed together. Victor's knees spread wider as he pushes on, until they can cage the expansion of his chest and shoulders.

Yuuri's naked arms brushes Victor's leg as he drops the razor and cream to the ground. Victor's hands close onto his biceps, but don't hurt. If anything he seems to be testing the grounds, waiting to see if Yuuri will tell him that he is not allowed to touch him. His breath hitches at the contact, but he doesn't push him back with hands or words.

This feels so inappropriate. Him on his knees between Victor's legs, arms resting atop Victor's tights, against Victor's naked body.

Yuuri's hands shake when they come to rest on each side of Victor's face. Thick silver curls sweep under his knuckles as he gently pushes his thumbs under the mask. Already the porcelain falls a good inch away from Victor's eyes as they sink to the back.

He holds his breath as he peels off the mask.

What catches his attention first is how pale the skin underneath the mask actually is. He had imagined it to be as dirty as he hands to which the face belonged, smeared with dirt and sweat and crawling, and yet he finds none of it. His eyes glide across the large, pale forehead and temples, skin stretched across angular features. Victor's eyes are momentarily obscured as he lowers the mask, but resurface as the top brushes past his nose. Long silver lashes frame them, giving him a doe-like look that doesn't match the rest of his face. One of the sapphire blue irises looks a little darker than its twin, a lighter pebble that reflects Yuuri's face as he loses himself into its depth, almost letting the mask escape his grasp. The mask gradually uncovers his aquiline nose and chiseled jawline underneath the expanse of silver hair, reveals the curve of a heart-shaped mouth, the upper lip a pink cupid's bow that puckers slightly when joined with the lower lip.

He is as beautiful as Yuuri had imagined him to be.

Yuuri unconsciously raises his hand to brush back Victor's fringe, silken hair parting like a curtain between his fingers. Victor leans into his touch, nose brushing the inside of his palm.

He startles when Victor's thumb lingers atop his cheekbones, eyes boring into the spot as if searching for something that isn't there.

What is he doing, Yuuri wonders, until his finger brushes the top of his right cheekbone and traces a small line. The blood crust presses back underneath his fingers presses back into Yuuri's skin.

Oh yes. He'd gotten that bruise last night; Yuri's parting gift to him when he'd announced that he wouldn't be going back to Moscow with him, or the States, or anywhere else for what it fucking mattered anymore.

It's not your fault, he wants to say, but bites it back. Why the hell should he apologize to Victor for something he didn't do, or could have done? Stupid stupid stupid.

Wordlessly, Yuuri takes the shaving cream in hand and uncaps it, squeezes mousse onto his open palm.

He tries to concentrate on the task at hand, spreading cream onto Victor's cheekbones and neck. The curls prickle under his fingers, the digits dipping into the hair as if sinking into mud.

Yuuri's hand next reaches for the knife handle.

It would be so easy. Yuuri could claim an accident, a wrong move he made when the razor grazed a vein on Victor's neck, right on his Adam's apple. Victor had attacked and in self-defence Yuuri had raised his only weapon and taken his life in a single strike, blood oozing from the gash at an alarming rate and splattering on the walls, making a mess of Yuuri's clothes and staining his face, Victor falling to the ground with a gasp, fingers clutching desperately at his throat and bathing in blood, the copper liquid pooling under him and his glassy eyes staring back at Yuuri in his last moments and –

Victor's hand steadies his wrist as his own comes to rest under his chin.

"I'll help."

Yuuri lets Victor guide the blade to the top of his cheekbone, positioning the edge diagonally above it.

Keeping his grip in the handle as firm as humanly possible, he adjusts the degree of his angle while Victor pulls the skin taut with his free hand, turning his head sideways and baring his neck for better reach.

Yuuri applies gentle pressure with the blade on his skin, until it hovers next to the root of the first curls.  
Starting at the sideburn, he moves downward with a first, short stroke at a downward slant, from the top of the cheek near the ear. The blade exposes the first expanse of white, unblemished skin slightly reddened under the pressure.

Yuuri looks up at Victor. When he makes no move to contest he gets back to the task at hand, continuing his strokes minutiously. His arm hangs heavily by his own, hand still holding his wrist like a vice.

After each short stroke, he brushes the blade against the fabric of his shorts. It probably isn't the most hygienic thing to do, but he doesn't dare to get up and wash the blade. As far as he can tell Victor seems unbothered by his actions and unless he should find reason to stop him, then he shall continue.

He lifts the razor slightly as he approaches the chin, using the tip of the blade to work on Victor's angular structure with gentler, steadier and more self-assured strokes.

Victor turns for him to complete the other side, and soon he is almost fully shaved. A heap of white hair and cream spreads on his clothes, falling into his lap, but he pays it no mind as he reveals Victor Nikiforov's greatest secret with every touch.

Left are his lips and neck. Victor arches his back and angles his head so he is looking up at the ceiling, forcing Yuuri to step closer. Now he is fully chest to chest with him, and he is certain Victor can feel his heart beating frenetically under his ribcage.

As the tip of the blade leaves the top of the lip, he wonders if anyone ever went as close to Victor as he has. This act alone speaks of such a level of intimacy that it perplexes him. Could it be that Victor had someone shave him before? Lilia maybe? Or perheps the person that came before him? In either case it must have been a long time since his last shave, given how thick the curls feels as they fall on his knees.

Victor's grip on his wrist tightens when he finally moves to his neck. He presents it bare before him, taut and pale like a swan's. Yuuri's blade wavers in his hand, and he has to hold onto Victor's shoulder to make the trembling dissipate. He follows the grain of the hair in the neck, his strokes short and steady.

Victor sits before him like Pygmalion's masterpiece, Galatea's statue come to life from porcelain and marble, wreck and destruction personified.

Was this truly wonder he felt when he finally took in his greatest work, or horror at the extent of his power over him?

Yuuri only sighs, forces a smile on his lips that strains him. They hurt from the cut he'd gotten hours earlier from falling, and from lack of use. He can feel the chapped skin under his tongue when he licks them in an attempt to hydrate them. Victor's eyes follow the movement of the pink tip, wetting and retreating behind his teeth as he nibbles them distractedly.

"Get in, alright? I'll run your bath."

Victor practically jumps into the water, something which he is glad for. He moves to the other side and turns on both taps, watching as the tub progressively fills with hot water. The clear liquid turns blurry once it comes in contact with Victor's skin, a puddle of murky water starting to surround him as it rises to ankle level. Victor looks nearly mesmerized by the sight of his body encircled by water, wriggling his toes to test the warmth that courses in the sole of his feet, fingers flicking the water and bringing it closer to himself to dampen his skin.

Yuuri leaves him to his childish games, forcing himself to tear hos gaze away from these childish games.

He almost makes it a step away before Victor's hand snaps up and snatches his wrist, promptly keeping him from moving. Yuuri's feet almost give under him but he steadies himself, held back by long-acquired instinct and Victor's blunt force.

"Won't you take a bath with me?"

He looks so innocent, so helpless, with his hair falling on his face and his long limbs practically dangling out of the tub, awkwardly wound together and much too big to fit in. If he weren't for the fact that he knew what lied behind these puppy-like eyes and what those limbs were capable of, he could almost fall for the trap.

"I want to take a bath with Yuuri." His grip tightens on Yuuri's wrist, palm fully wrapped around the bone. Yuuri hisses. It's tight enough for him to feel the blood stopping to circulate in his hand, to picture the bruises forming already. If Victor wanted to he could snap his wrist, break it and break his arm, his hand along with it.

His thumb brushes the blue line popping along the pale skin of Yuuri's wrist. The tip of the nail, long and round-edged scrapes the vein.

He'll have to cut those too once he gets his hands on clippers.

Yuuri huffs, not bothering to turn. Like a mother resigned with her youngest child's antics. It isn't like he had a choice in the first place.

He concedes. He'll need one anyway. "Ok, Victor. I'll take a bath with you."

His hands reach up to grab his glasses and fold the arms, deposit the item on the sink. A veil covers his eyes when he blinks to clear them, blurring his vision of Victor expectantly waiting for him in the tub. His gaze burns into his skin all the same, two hard marbles squinting in his direction. Yuuri dares to correspond his stare, lowering his fingers to the hem of his shirt and pulling it up with utmost care, as if afraid his fingers might tear at the fabric. His palms, moist and wringing the cloth, slip on his stomach as he raises the garment above his chest. If it weren't for the way his knuckles twitch in anticipation and in contact with the cool air, he could almost imagine that Victor is the one undressing him.

There's no mistaking Victor's sharp intake of breath when his fingers move to his shorts, sliding under the thick cotton of the waistband and telling the material fall to the floor, pooling at his ankles. Nothing he hasn't seen before, Yuuri is certain of it.

And yet Victor can't take his eyes off of him as he advances towards him. He treads carefully on the tiles, partly due to the splashed water that could make him slip and partly not to trigger Victor's animal instincts. Victor's hands graze the ceramic with a wet sound, reaching out to Yuuri but not daring to touch him. Yuuri faces away from him in stubborn refusal of help, clenching the sides with white knuckles.

Yuuri barely keeps himself from doubling over as he dips one foot in the water. The warm liquid seeps into his blisters and the scratches left on his ankles, prompting him to grit his teeth as he sinks inside to the knee and brings the other foot inside. To his relief, Victor makes no motion to help.

Yuuri heaves a little as he finally sits inside the bathtub, immersed in water to his kneecaps and chest. Somehow the added weight doesn't seem to disturb the water around them, even though he nearly dropped like a stone on his tremblings legs.

Victor's legs bracket his own in the bathtub, much too small to be able to hold the both of them in. Yuuri scrunches his shoulders and legs, folding his body into fetal position to properly enter. Victor seems unfazed by how cramped the tub is, his calves supporting Yuuri's on both sides.

No matter how much he struggles he is still pressed against Victor. A pair of strong arms emerge from each side, wrapping around him with hesitation. Yuuri freezes as they weave themselves next to his hips, then drag acros his stomach like translucent tentacles. Victor pushes back against Yuuri, making him lean fully against his form and supporting most of his weight.. The grey hair on Victor's chest tickles his back, a trail that cascaded from between Yuuri's shoulderblades down to his lower back. Yuuri suffocates between the water pooling around his knees and Victor's arms trapping him, the ball at the back of his throat thrumming and expanding and deflating with every intake of breath.

Neither of them moves, even to continue with the pretense of a bath. At this point Yuuri doubts he can lift a finger to grab for the soap. Victor's hands don't wander into foreign territory, which doesn't help Yuuri any more than before.

He flinches as a weight suddenly makes its presence known on his shoulders. Before he could realize it, Victor's hold on his waist had loosened and moved to the edge of the tub. Yuuri gasps when Victor's hands suddenly settle around his throat, yet shows no resistance.

Testing the waters.

Such was a bridal ritual.

And yet he can't help but ask before his voice dies out forever, like the nightingale's last wish for his king beyond the cage. "You won't hurt me, right Victor?"

He'd asked him the exact same question the night Yuri came to drag him back to the ice. He'd lain in his bed, laid next to a porcelain figure of Victor, talked to the doll as if it – as if he – were his child, his brother, his friend, his lover.

 _"You won't let me leave, right Victor?"_

The silence is his only answer.

 _He takes it as a yes. He_ _ **knows**_ _it's a yes. "Then you have to help me, ok?"_

"I'm sorry," Victor simply whispers in his hair, nose buried in black strands and inhaling the scent of Yuuri's shampoo. He sounds so sincere it tugs at something inside Yuuri that he forces himself to swallow back.

Sure, he thinks. But what exactly are you sorry for?


	3. Tale as old as Time

It turned out that they had stayed inside the bathroom long enough for noon to break. Lunch it would be then.

Yuuri finds out that Victor has an entire wardrobe at his disposal, carefully hidden in the closet of his room, right behind the child-size suits Yuuri had dressed the doll with for the past month. They don't even smell musty as he 'd expected them do, but he discerns an entirely distinct smell alltogether. A faint cap of dust mingled with stale air and the barest hint of bleach. Clean, the kind he associates with tailor-made shirts, freshly made and ironed and left to stand at the back of the closet until it is retrieved by its new owner.

Yuuri fights the urge to bury his nose into the collar of Victor's shirt, seeking the light cologne he had sprayed the doll version of the Russian with only a day ago. He is almost afraid to touch it, scared that the fabric will crumple under his fingers into a pile of dust, fade as soon if he does so much as look at it.

Victor's stoicness appears to be gone, washed down the drain with the remains of dirt and blood. He wears a small smile on his face as Yuuri towels his hair and body and moves to help him into his clothes.

His smile is disturbing. Smiles in general confuse him. Where he comes from smiles are exchanged rather freely, as a form of politeness, to cover embarassment or show silent support. This smile carries the familiarity of a lover's, well acquainted with his quirks and states of mind. It makes Yuuri feel naked before his gaze, even more than he was before with only water as a barrier.

Why can't he just smile like a psychopath?

Yuuri isn't sure what to make of himself, of his hands and his legs as he retrieves garment after garment. Victor makes no move to help him other than lift his limbs to slide them into pant legs and sleeves, leaving Yuuri to do the rest. He takes care not to let his fingers linger too long on Victor's skin, hardly a brush whether he pulls a zip up or buttons his shirt or straightens his collar. His skin still feels a little damp from his hasty towelling, having not desired to spend too long drying certain parts of his anatomy. Victor's hand guiding his own burns his skin long after he'd removed it, the callous digits tracing a path from the tip of a pink toe up to his inner tight, dangerously close to his manhood.

Soon enough Victor is impeccably dressed in a red shirt and a smooth pair of pants that hangs lowly on his hips in spite of the belt slung through the loops on his waist.

Yuuri doesn't protest when Victor takes his turn on him, leading him back to his bedroom and making him sit on the edge of the bed as he fishes through the drawers. Yuuri frowns when he brings back the clothes in the light for him to view. Black undergarments, black leggings, and a long-sleeved shirt, also black.

He recognizes the clothes in a hearbeat. To Victor this is simply dancing gear. To Yuuri this is mourning etiquette.

"You will dance for me after lunch, yes?" Victor smiles brightly. His grasp of English is a little rusty, he notes, but not broken as such. He knows for a fact that Victor doesn't expect him to reply.

He stills nods either way. "Of course."

Victor looks overjoyed, jumping into his arms to hug him. Yuuri's arms hang limply at his sides as Victor crashes into him, nuzzling at his neck.

"I'll go clean donwstairs, alright? You go check if we have any mail and empty the traps."

The "we" doesn't go unnoticed, making Yuuri shiver at the implication. Without his guardians present, they are completely on their own.

Then he perceives the other meaning of Victor's words.

He's almost relieved that Victor should suggest doing it by himself. He can't stand the thought of what could possibly be awaiting him downstairs. It's almost considerate of him to offer to do it. Better the devil you know.

Victor's fingers carress his cheek and he leans in, as if to give him a kiss. Yuuri can't find in him the strength to turn his head as Victor's lips enter his vision, and freezes when instead of finding his own they land on his forehead, pressing a soft kiss on his messy fringe.

"Don't take too long," Victor speaks softly in his ear, kissing the lobe before parting reluctantly, hands lingering on Yuuri's form as he backs away.

The keys sink into his palm like a rock, dents digging into his skin and a lot heavier than he remembers them to have been yesterday; he clenches them tightly in response.

He wouldn't dare to.

 _There is a lot on his mind as the truck delves deeper into English countryside. Yuuri can't remember the last time he saw this much green outside of the pages of a magazine, or in the streets of Hasetsu. He stills feels drowsy from what little sleep he could afford on the flight, and his driver is too focused on the slippery road to make small talk, which he is rather grateful for, so he settles for taking in the sights. Droplets of water drizzle on the windows, blurring his vision and turning the road into an impressionist painting. Like a Degas painting with far more shades of blue and grey._

 _Nervousness starts to flow into his system as the gates to the Nikiforov's house come in view._

 _It is immense just as he had imagined it, thinking back of the profile description the agent had provided him. The word "estate" alone didn't do it justice. From the outside the house looks magnificent, a Gothic-like vintage mansion of sea foam-colored bricks and seamless, oak-paneled windows shadowed by curtains. It was elegant and definitely part of another world, pristine albeit sinister against the grey backdrop of clouds and verdant trees that rose up to the heavens._

 _The driver drops him on the steps of the house with his luggage – a single suitcase and a backpack –, tells him to go inside and wait in the parlor. When Yuuri reaches in his pocket to fish out a bill he waves him off with an indulgent grin. Yuuri thanks him profusely again before he turns to leave, truck driving off into the distance._

His body works like a mechanical doll as he walks to it, gears and cogs turning in his head and setting in place. Yuuri mentally goes through his outdoor chores: check if there's any mail. Empty the traps. Trim the patches of grass and water the flowers and vegetable garden.

He doesn't stop once to think, mind blank and reciting the chores over and over like a mantra. Doesn't take a break to wonder: but does Victor have corpses decaying in a bloody chamber, hidden behind the walls? Are there limbs buried under the flowerbeds, between the rows of tomatoes of the vegetable garden?

Yuuri empties the traps on his way back to the house. Dead rats stare back at him hanging from their tails, beady red and black eyes. Their heads droop a little, at the junction between neck and back where the traps had caught them. Like the body attached to the tail, they dangle as Yuuri's fingers pry open the lids and seizes them to guide the cadavers into the trash bags. At first he'd been disgusted with them and with himself, playing with dead animals as if they were dolls.

Now? Now he's more fascinated than anything else.

He stuffs them quickly into the trash bag and closes it tightly, inhaling the morning air of wet grass and mud. To get their foul smell out of his nostrils, to not have to gaze into their eyes again. Animals had this sense of omniscient knowledge to them that unnerves him.

The image of their eyes still burns in his head as he heads back to the house. Are Chris's eyes as dark as the rats', are Yuri's eyes as large as pits and as lifeless as black holes?

 _Christophe – "Chris", he insists as he leads him downstairs with a bag of groceries in hand – is a welcome breeze but doesn't fit much in the décor. He shines too brightly in the blacklit halls, opening the path as he guides Yuuri back to the groundfloor of the house and walks him through the kitchen; no one with skin as golden as his own could possibly be from that area. He has a lazy and easy smile that reminds him a little of Phichit back in Detroit, except that it's more teasing and matches his crinkled eyes. Golden, he notes as a ray of light catches them._

 _Yuuri stills feel tense. From the way Chris's eyes rake over his body he can tell that the Swiss man is already quite interested, and he makes it equally well-known that he isn't._

" _What brings you here anyway?" Chris squints. "You look familiar, too. Have I seen you around?"_

 _Yuuri laughs nervously. "What's around?" he gestures at the kitchen, which seems to be enough for the blond, who smiles in return. Yuuri swallows back his apprehension. He doesn't dare to mention ice skating, or ballet, or anything else for that matter. Chris looks as informed about the rest of the world as anyone else in the county, and he likes it just as much as it is._

" _You know, my grandma used to read tea leaves and my mother reads palms."_

" _And what do you read?" Yuuri asks, playing his game in turn._

 _Chris smirks. "Nothing. But I've been told I'm pretty good at reading people in general."_

 _He inhales sharply. "Are you now?" Yuuri plays back, less self-assured than before._

 _Chris simply shrugs. "Well that's what most people tell me." Yuuri hopes that he will leave it to that, but of course he won't. "So... what do we have here?"_

" _Chris – " Yuuri starts, losing his smile alltogether._

" _You're... on the run, far away from home. You could have gone back, but there's something out there that makes you stay away. Which is hy you're here."_

" _So tell me," he leans towards Yuuri, making the younger man take a step back, "what are you running from? Someone? Something?"_

 _Yuuri instantly shutters. Not again._

 _Thankfully Chris seems to sense that he's made him uncomfortable. Before he can try to play it off, Yuuri clears his throat. "What are the Feltsmans like, anyway?"_

 _Chris scratches his beard a little, lost in thought. "Lilia and Yakov? They are nice enough, as far as grouchy people, but you get used to it. Quite generous too, if you're worried about the pay. I've never met any other delivery boy as well paid as I am."_

 _Yuuri nods. He had expected as much, thinking back of all of his previous research. From what the internet had to say about them they were pretty reclusive, in spite of having stood in the spotlight for a long time, back in the past. Lilia Baranovskaya had been a supreme ballet dancer whereas her husband had specialized in ice dancing. There isn't much else to say, only that they retired afterwards two good decades ago to spend more time with their family. Family being their only nephew, Victor Nikiforov, who according to the press had lost his parents in a car accident._

" _Alright then. And what is Victor like?"_

 _The smile fades from Chris's face and eyes as quickly as it had appeared._

" _Ah, yeah. About that, I should tell you..."_

 _But before he can go on, the door opens behind them. Yuuri turns only to fall back as a massive form tackles him to the ground. He gasps as said form starts to bark and lick at his cheeks, paws keeping him down and pressing into his sides. He laughs as the dog – a poodle, he identifies with a pang – keeps licking at him enthusiastically._

 _"Makkachin, down!" a dry voice calls the dog back to their side. Yuuri lifts his head to find himself facing Lilia Baranovskaya._

Letters pile in the mailbox, nothing of great importance. Yuuri pockets bills after bills after bills, the occasional advert from a plumber (" _for those days when you need a plumber_ _now_ _!_ ") and supermarket leaflet offering the latest deals on seasonal fruits and vegetables (" _you_ _don't want_ _to miss it!_ ").

The Feltsmans send no regards, as far as he if concerned. No letter has come in days from them, not a single letter adorned with Yakov's chicken scratch or Lilia's elegant, spiralling writing. They wouldn't have been able to reach them either if they tried; the landline was deemed useless a good week ago, and the house has neither reception nor wifi to get in touch with anyone out there in the wide, wild world. It's a miracle they still have electricity and a boiler at all, nevermind drinkable tap water.

Somehow he doubts that they should have even tried to contact him or Victor. At the time of their departure, Lilia had exhaled in this shaky, yet relieved way only an old woman who'd lived as long as she did could muster, hadn't she? Yakov seemed far more concerned but he too went away without so much as a worried look on his face when the car turned in the driveway. Why ever would he be worried over leaving his dead nephew alone, in a house in the middle of nowhere with only a dog and a Japanese babysitter for company?

Yet Yuuri finds it strangely comforting, not receiving news from them. He knows that they are possibly aware of his current situation – how could they not be? This or they were dead, purely and simply.

 _Lilia Baranovskaya seems very much unimpressed at the state in which she finds Yuuri. She looks him up and down, her gaze focusing last on his naked feet. She has a dancer's past, he remembers, and knows by reputation that he must be one too, as part of his training. To say he is more than disconcerted over the way she judges him would be an understatement. The Russian prima doesn't look very kindly on his sock-clad feet, and from the way her burning slits bore holes into the worn-out clothes, he's almost certain that she sees the invisible remains of blood stains he'd painfully washed off._

 _Yuuri knows that he weights more than he did before, and is put-off by how embarassing he must look in spite of his credentials. He probably deserves it though; he had utterly failed himself, his country and his family at the last Grand Prix._

 _After what seems like forever she decides to break their mutual silence. "And where are your shoes?"_

 _Ah, that is it. Per force of habits Yuuri had taken his shoes off before venturing further into the house, leaving them next to his luggage and backpack after entering._

 _"I er, I left them by the front door," Yuuri stutters. When Mrs Baranovskaya's expression doesn't waver he hurries past her to retrieve them. He huffs once he gets back to his luggage, but stops dead on his tracks._

 _His shoes are gone._

 _Steps come behind him. "I, I left them here. I swear they were there last time I saw them."_

 _Lilia waves him off. "Nevermind that. Victor must have taken them. He's... playful like that." She pins him back under her gaze, making Yuuri straighten under her scrutiny. "I do hope they weren't your only pair?"_

 _Yuuri quickly shakes his head then kneels to open his suitcase and get a pair of boots as fast as possible. When he finally gets back up, toes warm and a deep flush on his cheeks, Lilia leads him up the staircase._

" _I hope it will all work out for you," Lilia mentions as they ascend. "Now we've had quite a lot of candidates asking about the position, but Victor was adamant on having you here."_

" _Did he?" Yuuri asks, with disbelief clear in his voice. Why would any child want to have him here? He could barely handle his own godchildren, the Nishigori triplets, back in Hasetsu whenever Yuuko asked him to cover for her and Takeshi when they wanted some romantic time together. So why would a complete stranger want anything to do with him._

 _"Victor used to have only female nannies, but this is the first time he's asked for a male nanny. He is quite excited to meet you, you know? He's never met a Japanese before."_

 _Yuuri frowns. There's a retort on the tip of his tongue, something along the lines of "is your nephew racist" that he bites back with haste. Nevertheless he already pictures the situation: a ten-year-old, piggyback riding his way into Yuuri's life, tugging harshly at his hair until he grows bald, calling him names and kicking him in the shin. A blonder, smaller version of Yuri with the words "piggy, piggy, piggy" on his lips. How did you even say "pig" in Russian anyway? A surge of bitter memories forces itself at the back of his mind, and he pushes them away before he can think of Yuri again._

 _Lilia turns to him again, not doubt sensing his uneasiness. "Oh but don't worry too much about it. You're younger and prettier than the others, so hopefully Victor will take a liking to you pretty quickly."_

 _If possible, his frown only grows deeper. How confusing. What sort of child was Victor like?_

 _Fortunately they come in front of a door behind which, if he strains his ear, he can perceive a man's low whispers. Yuuri hears a faint "you will behave, won't you?" before Lilia's voice steps in._

" _Ready?" she asks, hand already on the door knob. If he squints she looks slightly nervous, and her voice sounds just the tiniest bit strained. He only nods curtly, and her wrist snaps the door open sharply._

 _From the doorway he sees whom he assumes is Yakov Felstman, turning away from them and kneeling next to a chair, hand pressed atop its back in such a way that his arm curves in an almost paternal way, shielding whom he guesses is Victor sitting in the chair. The last of his hair, grey and thin, brushes the collar of his black coat when he turns to Yuuri. His stoic face morphs into a grimace that Yuuri guesses is his version of a smile._

" _Mr Katsuki," he greets with a gruff voice, and extends his hand for Yuuri to shake, a good distance away from him. Seeing that he won't move, Yuuri steps forward to take his wrinkled hand._

 _And that's when he sees it._

 _There's no movement in the chair behind him, no neck straining to see him from above Yakov Feltsman's shoulder_

 _Instead a ball-jointed porcelain doll stares up at him, pale-skinned and short silver hair falling in front of its left eye. The doll is decked in a navy blue suit complete with a crisp white shirt, blak tie and leather shoes, looking as realistic as it was eerily abstract. It was very detailed, from the touches of pink on the lips and cheekbones to the tips of the fingers._

 _Chris's voice startles him when it goes past him._

" _Good to see you, Victor," he chimes as he smiles down at the doll, reaching out for its hand to shake. The arm flails in his grasp, then falls limply to its side. From the corner of his eye he spies Lilia smiling dotingly at the two of them._

 _Chris retreats to Yuuri's side, backing a lsmall step away to look him in the eye, out of the elders' sight. Play along, his eyes say._

 _So Yuuri does as he is expected. Forces his most polite "how do you do" smile, the one he usually reserves for the cameras, and kneels in front of the doll – Victor, he reminds himself – until they're face to face. His hand feels warm in Yuuri's own, Chris and Yakov's warmth lingering on the smooth surface of the palm._

" _Hello Victor. I'm Yuuri. I hope we can be friends in the future."_

 _The rest of the visit passes by in a blurred haze as Lilia shows him around the house, giving some basic instructions. He learns among other things that they never dispose of leftovers, in spite of the fact that Victor will never eat his meals; this, of course, goes unsaid as Yuuri simply nods his agreement. They have a fridge in which they put the tupperwares in, off to the side of the kitchen. Yakov offers to walk him through the gardens to show him what he will be tasked to do. Yuuri takes hold of his arm wordlessly, letting himself be guided out the front door to the large gardens on the estate._

" _You must have a lot of questions," Yakov mutters as they reach a patch of vegetables at the back, nearly ripe blotches of color sprouting from the earth. Makkachin is at their heels, trailing after them and frolicking in the high grass and flowers. Yuuri suspects there are really more weeds than anything else blooming here._

" _I think that's an understatement sir," Yuuri whispers back, still leaning onto his arm more heavily than intended. Yakov doesn't seem to notice, but does pat his arm in acknowledgment as he shows him where the traps are hidden._

" _We keep these traps around to catch the vermin. There are quite a lot of rats roaming in the walls, so you might want to be careful about that. Nasty little buggers makes such noise."_

 _He points up to the windows. "We had to have the house renovated when the Nikiforovs passed away. The men who came, they painted all the windows shut by accident. Don't know what went through their minds..."_

 _He leads them back, Yuuri trailing after him with questions hanging in the air. Something nags him in their interaction, Mr Felstman is deliberately keeping something from him and it's making him uneasy._

" _When my sister died," he stops suddenly, so sharply Yuuri practically crashes into him. He stops to let him compose himself, then goes on as they walk in step. "When my sister died, Victor was already gone by then, but she couldn't get him out of her head. She just... couldn't accept that her only child had left her so suddenly. So she did everything she could to honor his memory. Poor Anastasia went bad, and her husband... I don't know how he dealt with it. And when they died, she made it clear in her will that we should take very good care of Victor."_

" _You must find us mad," he chuckles darkly, turning to face Yuuri fully before crossing he threshold. Yuuri dares not answer, only fixes him with curiosity. Yakov sighs at his silence. "You're smart, I'll give you that."_

 _He suddenly wraps Yuuri in his arms, who lets out a gasp at the physical contact. Yakov's form is robust against his own, grip tight enough to make him lose his breath. He mentally reprimands himself for getting scared so easily in the span of a single day, and yet can't keep the feeling from coursing through his veins._

" _Things are not always what they appear on the outside, my boy. But you will take good care of him, won't you? Be good to him and he'll be good to you."_

 _His hold, if it were possible, tightens, trapping Yuuri under bulking flesh and fabric._

" _Treat him well. Love him, like a brother, like your own child. You won't regret it, I promise."_

 _Yuuri buries his nose in Yakov's shoulder, slowly corresponding his embrace._

" _Yes, sir."_

" _You're a natural," Lilia notes later when he sets Victor back on the bed, tucking him in and smoothing the bedsheets._

 _So far she seems satisfied with how Yuuri is getting acclimated to the house and to Victor. It's a little easier to slip into this babysitter persona when he thinks that really, it's just like playing dollhouse with Axel, Lutz and Loop. Except that it's lifesize and there are no little girls running around and laughing joyously, no one to run after. In retrospective he associates the whole situation with taking care of Vicchan, which makes him a little less clumsy at the prospect of taking care of a doll. Eat, drink, walk, sleep. All in a day's work._

 _Lilia doesn't once let go of the doll, coddling it and leaning it over her shoulder. Victor's baby blue eyes reflect his advancing form as they move back to the groundfloor, a little man stuck in motion inside twin wooden globes. Yuuri squints a little at him. If he had more nerve he would probably stick his tongue out, but the reminder that Victor isn't actually alive, isn't actually human hangs above him, followed miles away by an interrogation mark. He's almost surprised to not see him flinch when Lilia puts on a record on the grammophon, the volume so high he swears he lost his snese of hearing for a split second. That's another requirement: always play music loudly._

 _The details of his face are rather off-putting, to say the least. Not to mention the rest of his body. Yuuri had barely kept himself from gaping when Lilia had undressed the doll to show him how to properly change Victor in his different outfits for the day – now now, Victor, let's not be shy –, exposing defined limbs and torso. Yuuri had tried not to stare too long at the bulk between Victor's legs, disgusted but wholly intrigued by how detailed the genitals were underneath the cotton boxers. Whoever had made him had obviously done incredible work._

" _I have three nieces, back home." Yuuri replies, eyes taking in the doll and the bed he lies in. Victor seems to drown in the bed, much too large for one person. His dorm room had smaller, comfier-looking beds._

" _Back home," Lilia repeats, transfixed by these two words in particular. When Yuuri turns enquiringly, she just shakes her head. "They must really love you."_

" _They're little devils, but I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world." Yuuri laughs, a fond smile curving his lips at the memory of the Nishigoris._

" _I do hope you won't feel too homesick here. You've seen so much of the world already..."_

 _She comes to stand behind him, looking at Victor over his shoulder as she claps it. The motion feels a little maternal, save for the fact that her nails are digging into his flesh like a cat's with all too great familiarity._

" _Let's move him downstairs," she sighs with finality, letting go of him after what feels like forever. "Dinner is ready."_

 _Victor is sent to bed immediately after supper. Yuuri stands awkwardly in the doorway as Lilia and Yakov kneel at the bed, Victor lying once again under the duvet. Lilia leads, her prayers coming in soft breaths. God bless us. God protect Victor, God protect Lilia, God protect Yakov. God protect Yuuri._

 _He doesn't protest when the spouses ask for some time alone with Victor, promptly shutting the door in his face. From behind the oak he hears their hushes, strains his ear to try and catch what they're saying. For a second he almost swears he hears another voice between the two, lost with the wind._

 _His hearts jumps in his throat when the door abruptly opens. Lilia stands before him, smilequivering slightly. From tiredness, from emotion, from something else, he can't tell._

" _It's done," she states, pounding a nail into the words. "He's chosen you."_

" _So... you're basically telling me that you're gonna take care of Annabelle?"_

" _Shh!" Yuuri chuckles lowly in the mouthpiece of the phone; a black, old-fashioned set of the kind he can carry around with him through one side of the room to another, but not without risking tripping over the cord._

" _What? It's true!" Phichit sounds completely serious but if he were in the room Yuuri is certain he could see the corners of his lips lift up. "Don't tell me you don't find it weird! Just because you grew up in Japan doesn't make you immune to this kind of stuff!"_

" _I know I know, but I'm not going to be watching over the Antichrist either. It's just for a month anyway, nothing could possibly happen in a month."_

 _Phichit's sigh has a weight to it that tires Yuuri out, as she sits on the edge of the bed with the phone on his lap and listens to Phichit repeat the same mantra over and over again. "I still think you should have stayed in Detroit."_

 _Yuuri sighs, weary of getting yet another earful. "I hate to say this, but I agree. I only just found where to plug in my computer and there's no signal."_

" _Get out," Phichit moans dramatically over the phone. "No reception and no wifi? How do you survive?"_

 _Yuuri laughs at his best friend's antics, his voice making off the last of his worries dissipate. "I have no idea, Phichit. I mean at least they have electricity and running water. Could be worse."_

 _It's probably for the best, Yuuri considers after setting his laptop on the bedside table. The less contact he has with the media and the outside world, the better. After his tremendous loss during the Grand Prix, on what should have been the culmination of his career at 23 years old, he needs a break. Preferably a long one._

 _He lies back, groaning with satisfaction as the weight of the mattress dips under his spine. The bed, which he guessed on sight alone to be king-sized, is way too big to accommodate a single person. He doesn't need that much room in the first place, but all of the rooms including the guest ones are grand; a not-so-small luxury he indulges in for the timebeing._

" _Yuri's been calling again, you know," Phichit mutters into the phone, suddenly sounding much more somber. The fact that he isn't calling him Yurio like they usually did to differentiate the two of them is clue enough, if not the way he spits out the name like poison on the tip of his tongue._

 _Yuuri's heart skips a beat at that. Fear rumbles lowly, dangerously in his chest, underneath the exhaustion of the day. Trust Yuri to look for him wherever he went. He could move to Hell and yet the blond would still find a way to drag his ass back out of the gutter._

 _He swallows with difficulty. "What is he saying?"_

" _He asked where you were. I told him to go fuck himself."_

 _Yuuri exhales, the sob he'd been burying inside him dissolving slightly. "That's my boy. Thank you Phichit.'_

" _Don't thank me Yuuri, you know I'd do anything for you."_

 _They talk some more about life in Detroit. In his absence Phichit still skates at their usual rink under the supervision of Celestino, and leaves his room as it is except to dust it on Sundays and let some air in. Yuuri hangs up with his heart a little lighter, and gets ready for bed._

 _The shrill ring of the phone breaks into his thoughts as he changes into his pajamas. He moves to get it, half struggling into his t-shirt. Did Phichit forget to mention something._

" _Yes Phichit?" he says into the mouthpiece as he adjusts his sleeve._

 _Silence answers back. Or rather, a harsh breathing makes its presence known over the phone._

 _How weird. "Hello?" he asks again, unsure of what else to say._

 _The dial tone announces that his call is over._

 _They leave the next day for what Yakov announces to be a "short vacation". From what Yuuri gathers, they had wanted to go for some time now but hadn't had the time what with Victor missing a caretaker in their absence. Yuuri reassures him with an understanding nod, cradling Victor in his arms. He presses uncomfortably against his ribcage when Yakov hugs him again as he had the previous day, then presses a kiss atop Victor's silver crown of hair._

 _Lilia's smile is a little puckered when she approaches him to say goodbye. Yuuri is taken aback when instead of shaking his hand, she wraps her arms around him, bony limbs pulling him forward until he can smell her perfume from inside her neon-bright coat. Something flowery, with the consistency of dust that could probably choke him._

 _She looks almost... rueful? Surely it is just an undercurrent of guilt, the kind mothers always had at the thought of leaving their children on their own for some time. Such was motherhood: to suffer for your flesh and blood, over and over again._

" _I'm sorry," she whisper in his ear as she pulls away, half shoving him but with her nails still digging crescents in his shoulders._

" _What for?" Yuuri aches to whisper back, but by the time he is composed again they're seated in the car, ignition started. He waves as they drive into the horizon, disappearing into the woods and out of sight._

 _He distractedly pats Makkachin's head as he looks down at Victor. The doll's gaze looks back into the house behind them, uncaring of Yuuri's questions._

" _Looks like it's just you and me," Yuuri rasps absentmindedly._

 _If he thinks hard enough, he can almost make it to be true._


	4. Song as old as Rhyme

Victor is nowhere in sight when he gets back. The list, however, greets him from atop its place on the hallway table.

He toes off his shoes at the front door, before reaching for the woodboard.

The list still finds its way wherever he goes; in his room, propped against the staircase, hanging in the kitchen, on the piano. Prim, razor-sharp calligraphy winks at him from the paper, almost in mockery. He knows the words off by heart by now, can list them in the precise order in which they come. And yet he stills seizes it in hand. Force of habits.

Black ink glistens as he angles the list towards him, cursive letters dancing over the page perfectly aligned in a soundless litany. And yet in their muteness there is movement, specks of white embossed through thick strokes. Like the writer had seized the pen too briskly and dug it into the paper with enough strength for the words to cut, carving the penmanship on the supporting wood board the sheet rested on. There is, of course, no questioning of whose hand put the words where they now belonged.

Yuuri swings the board onto his palm, bringing forward new rules and bending the old.

 _Rule number one:_

 _No guests._

 _Rule number two:_

 _Never leave Victor alone._

 _Rule number three:_

 _Save meals in freezer._

 _Rule number four:_

 _Never cover Victor's face._

 _Rule number five:_

 _Read a bedtime story._

 _Rule number six:_

 _Play music loud._

 _Rule number seven:_

 _Clean the traps._

 _Rule number eight:_

 _Only Chris brings deliveries._

 _Rule number nine:_

 _Victor is never to leave._

 _Rule number ten:_

 _Kiss goodnight._

Mental lines crisscross themselves in place onto every line, his slanted handwriting making small adjustements here and there, allowing him the luxury of witty notes scattered in the air. It's a form of hurting; there is a palpable satisfaction in fantasing about displeasing Victor, tainting his words with his own, far clumsier and ruining their elegance on paper. In his mind Yuuri has the upper hand, even when he knows he has no chance whatsover on all grounds.

His eyes rest far longer on the last line.

 _Rule number ten:_

 _Kiss goodnight._

Yuuri had entirely foregone that one rule during his stay. Lilia had never showed him what he should do for the nightly rituals, only telling him to brush his hair and put him in pajamas. Until he had come across it on the list, she had never mentioned it. And by the time he could ask, she was gone.

 _"Now we've had quite a lot of candidates asking about the position, but Victor was adamant on having you here."_

Victor had kissed him last night. Or rather _he_ had kissed him. A lingering peck of his lips on Victor's porcelain cheek, the taste of blood rich and sharp over the painted cheekbone as he tried to bat it away, eyes clenched shut.

 _"Victor used to have only female nannies, but this is the first time he's asked for a male nanny. He is quite excited to meet you, you know?"_

So Yuuri had stuck around, played by their little game of dollhouse and all had turned remotely well. Well enough for him to smoothly lie through his teeth when the calls from his parents came, to reassure them that " _yes, I am eating_ ", " _yes, I've been sleeping well_ " " _yes the pay's pretty good_ " " _yes, Victor is a good boy but he can't come on the phone right now, he's really shy with strangers and still working on his English you see?_ "

Something bubbles inside him, churns deep in his gut and burns within his loins. Butterflies break their cocoons and take flight at the core of his belly, cut-edge wings unfurling and fluttering.

He isn't scared per se; scared is too easy and restrictive as a word to express how he feels right now.

He's treading on a thin line. Tip-toeing along the edge of earth and water, six feet under his executioner's steps and yet six feet behind with the noose in his hands.

To overcome or be overcomed.

Phichit hasn't called since the other day. He sincerely hopes that he won't.

 _Yuuri wants to do something about the doll. Lock it up inside its room, out of his sight and out of his problems, toss a blanket over its face to make it stop looking at him. Which is absolutely ridiculous because Victor is a doll, for God's sake, he couldn't just **stare** at people. And yet he has this alluring air to him that makes him feel as if there were another human presence in the room. Living, breathing, flesh and bone and blood with the weight of existence pulsing from heart to veins. All the creepier, and all the more reasons to get him away from Yuuri._

 _But something tells him his hosts wouldn't particularly appreciate it. In spite of the lack of modern furniture, he wouldn't be surprised at all to find out there are cameras hidden at every corner of the house. The Feltsmans remain old money, and they could definitely afford it. Nothing would ever be enough for their beloved nephew. This or he is just as paranoid as he thinks himself to be._

 _So with no ulterior motive or plan in mind Yuuri sets him in the armchair of the parlor, plush material giving under the weight of Victor's porcelain body. As if he really were a ten-year-old boy sitting in his favorite chair in the living room, in full view of an invisible body of guests who came all the way to see him. The prince of the day, dressed to the nine, nestled in his chair under cushions and the loving gazes of relatives and friends alike._

 _It can't be that bad, Yuuri muses as he smoothes imperceptible wrinkles off the pants of Victor's suit. All in the name of the image the Feltsmans keep of themselves and their boy. To his asocial mind, this is almost a dream come true: to have a whole house to himself filled with books and records, fully furnished and with a stocked pantry, functioning lights and hot water, and only a dog for company._

 _What could possibly go wrong?_

 _As predicted there isn't much to do inside the house, but Yuuri refuses to be deterred._

 _No sooner does he set his mind that his stomach starts to growl, breaking the peaceful silence reigning in the living room. He flushes, brings his hand to his stomach in hopes that the sound will dim out. His palm smothers his protuding belly through the fabric of his shirt. He'll have to lose some of that weight, if he wanted to consider a comeback after this babysitting stunt._

 _He glances at Victor, still looking at nothingness and yet appearing as if he were looking at Yuuri. He chances a nervous laugh, a strange sound halfway between a snort and a giggle that bubbles in his throat until it roars. Yuuri has to cover his mouth with his free hand to keep it from escaping, close to doubling over. When his breathing finally stabilizes he exhales shakily, a small smile pulling at the corners of his lips._

 _How delusional of him. Of course Victor wouldn't be listening to him or giving a fig about his antics._

 _Yuuri clears his throat. "Well since it's officially our first day together I'll make you my favorite dish, alright? You must be hungry."_

 _Look at him. Yuuri Katsuki, 23-year-old dime-a-dozen figure skater and dancer, talking to a doll as if it were human. This is my life, these are my choices, the asocial part of his brain supplies helpfully as he goes to pick up the doll. There is care in his movements when he pulls Victor towards him, one arm resting at his back and the over coming under his knees to lift him up._

" _There we go," Yuuri groans in spite of the lack of physical effort he has to provide to hoist him up. He bends backwards a little to get a better view of Victor head above him. His beady eyes jangle at the back of his head before settling back on Yuuri again, lashes falling on the blown pupils._

 _He remembers Mari's Barbie dolls. Back then she'd had the nasty habit of removing their clothes and tearing off her dolls' heads, plucking them by the hair from atop their body, leaving behind headless, narrow-waisted plastic mannequins without a spot to them, caramel skin shiny with resin. He would play with them sometimes, moving their limbs into dancing positions that threatened to break their nimble bodies, legs spread into angles varying from ninety to one hundred and eighty. He'd broken one's leg once, pulling it too far and forcing it to disjoin. The Steadfast Plastic Soldier, Mari had chuckled when she'd taken it back. Not that she'd minded much in the first place, she hated "girly toys" in the first place._

 _Victor is bigger, heavier but not uncomfortably so. He's much easier to rest against his upper body and shoulder than it was to lift his nieces or Mari's travesty of dolls. And much more pleasing to the eye, if he dares say so himself. If he squints he could almost not tell the difference between him and a normal child. He should belong in an art collector's gallery._

 _Or in Ed and Lorraine Warren's Occult Museum, Phichit's voice cynically drops at the back of his head. He forces it down with a sigh._

 _God he misses Phichit so much already. His mom, his dad, Mari, the Nishigoris, his dog... But now is not the time to get emotional._

 _Yuuri buries his nose in Victor's nylon hair – or is it something else? – and inhales deeply, swallowing back the sob forming in his lungs. To his surprise the doll's hair are soft to the touch, smelling faintly of fresh shampoo. The motion has something restful and human to it, similar to coming home to his mother's embraces, her shorter body a perfect fit for Yuuri's arms to hold and drown into._

" _Come on then," Yuuri whispers in Victor's hair, "we've gotta make lunch."_

 _To his relief the kitchen is well equipped and he has enough to throw something together, knowing from the start that his rendition of katsudon would never pay justice to his mother's. He suspects there will be a lot of improvisation to be made, part of his ingredient list shortening as he explores the kitchen cupboards. At the very least he has meat and rice, and a wide array of spices. That would do until Chris came back the following week._

 _Victor sits opposite him at the kitchen table with Makkachin sitting next to him, tongue lolling and gazing up at Yuuri while he washes rice. Grains crunch under his fingers, kneading them in the pearly water until the liquid turns filmy, like a puddle after a storm._

 _There's something analeptic in manipulating the meat, the pork cutlets plump and rosy on the cutting board as he pounds them with the foot of a glass, then seasons and dusts the surface with a cloud of pepper, salt and flour. Steam rises from the pan in which the rice cooks, earthly and rich and sure to compliment the vegetable broth still simmering on the countertop. Yuuri hums to himself in the middle of slicing the onion into thin rings, holding his breath and squinting to keep the open enzymes from making him tear up. He aches for music, something to play in the background while he goes on with his tasks. But his phone is still charging in his room, so he has to make-do with his imagination._

 _Somehow the first song to come to mind is hard rock; Alice Cooper's crooning voice resounds in his ears, low notes and sensual undertones pulling him into the music. Soon he's making his way to the fridge with a little more spring in his steps, toes slipping on the kitchen tiles and his hips and shoulders rolling in a figure-eight movement. Lyrics dance on his lips, first barely above a whisper then rising as far up as he can manage along with beating yolks and dipping the cutlets in the bowls of eggs and breadcrumbs._

 _Yuuri makes an appreciative noise when the meat sears in the pan upon touching the oil, letting the pork fry slowly while he removes the rice from the gas cooktop and replaces it with a skillet for the onions and the rest of the broth. The kitchen gradually fills with a hearty smell of vegetables and meat as the recipe comes to completion. Yuuri feels his stomach growl again when the golden brown cutlets finally rest in their bowls atop steamed rice and glistening onion rings, broth colouring the moist crust a lovely brown color._

 _The only breach in the newly-found comfort is the lack of chopsticks, and Victor's silent inability to eat._

 _This doesn't stop the smile from spreading on Yuuri's lips as he gathers cutlery and a extra bowl for Makkachin's meal. "Itadakimasu," he says, bowing slightly before digging in._

 _Yuuri moans as the tender meat comes in contact with his tongue, eyes fluttering shut as he savors the heavenly mixture of salty meat, egg and warm soup. The onions have a sweet consistency under his teeth, practically melting against his palate._

 _His glasses fog up from the rising steam, obscuring his view of Victor and his bowl. Through the world of grey and seafoam his lenses catch, he might as well not exist._

Watching the man eat, after months of feeding a doll made in his image, is quite disturbing. Though his manners are impeccable, Yuuri can't help but find a certain... animalism in the way Victor chews at his meat, something primal that makes the insides of his stomach churn. It's almost obscene, an act of debauchery. Yuuri's eyes can never fully leave Victor's face during the entirety of his meal. Cutlery scrapes the plate with low, screeching sounds that echo in the silence of the tiny kitchen. Victor's teeth, white and long and sharp-looking dig into the meat and chew wetly in abandon; tearing the cutlets apart and licking crumbs, half-cooked yolk and sauce off the silver cutlery. The Russian man practically licks the plate clean, not even leaving a single grain of rice uneaten.

He had severely underdone the meat, the center of the cutlets a vibrant red against the sizzled, pink sides. And yet Victor, Yuuri muses after only carmine drops are left on Victor's plate, seems to enjoy undercooked meat more than he probably should.

His mother's homemade speciality doesn't taste the same in his mouth. Probably because his mother would never let the pork cutlet go this undercooked. Victor gratefully accepts his leftovers after Yuuri can only manage a few bites and nibbles on his food. He swallows back the rice but leaves a lot of pork on the dish. If he takes more he fears he might vomit. It tastes like cardboard and clogs deep in his throat.

"You have to eat, Yuuri," he chides lightly, voice lowered to a pitch familiar enough to put him on edge. It doesn't belong with his body, in this body and this mouth.

He doesn't have time to protest before Victor's hand is under his jaw, thumb and pinkie finger forcing the corners of his mouth open. Yuuri automatically complies without struggling, shaping his mouth into a small, gaping "o" shape.

"Open up," he drawls, mimicking a plane flying in the air as the fork hovers in front of Yuuri's face.

His teeth scrap the fork's teeth, the metallic handles grazing the rows of ivory crowns and brushing his lips at a tortuously slow pace. Victor's eyes remain fixated on his mouth, pink and chapped and damp with blood.

He doesn't ask Victor if he disposed of the bodies, nor whether they really are on their own in their house in the middle of the country. No delivery boy has come since the previous one died at Victor's hand. Yuuri never dares to ask if the meat he found in the fridge and currently swallows is actually pork.

 _Taken up by curiosity, Yuuri continues his exploration of the house with Victor still in his arms and Makkachin in tow. The hot meal and a cup of green tea swell his belly a little, but it is a comfort he relishes in for the first day._

 _Tomorrow, he tells himself. Enough time to arrange his clothes and pull out his dancing gear from the depths of his suitcase._

 _His shoes haven't reappeared yet, and he hadn't taken time to roam inside Victor's room to look for them. It would feel so awkward; going in a doll's room, of all places, purely because he believed him to have stolen his shoes. And then there's the unpleasant impression that going in Victor's room uninvited or without a better motive would be a terrible violation on his part. Everything about a room screamed "intimacy", and Yuuri knew that he himself wouln't appreciate it if anyone came into his room without asking him first. Doll or not, there were still limits to his power as a nanny._

 _His curiosity is a little picked when he finds the family library, admiring with a dazed look the wide selection of what appear to be classics on classics. Many titles, if not all of them, he recognizes to be in Cyrillic and he surveys them with dark knowledge, letters and masterpieces flashing too intimately before his eyes, almost mocking. Years spent focused on sports medicine and figure skating never left enough time for other activities such as reading, which he knew to have enjoyed before college and sports took over his life. And yet here he was, years of grad school on hold and skating career as good as dead and inexistant. What was stopping him?_

 _His eyes fall on a familiar title. **The Arabian Nights** look back at him from their thick spine, a blue-and-black hardback perfectly bound and looking as is it had never been opened. No traces of folding tarnish the polished surface of what looks to be the first of many volumes._

" _Have you ever read that one, Victor?", he holds the book in the air, cover facing away from Victor but still turning his head in an attempt to look at him. Without expecting much of an answer he reaches up for the book, palm cradling the heavy tome and bringing the cover forward, brushes specks of dust off the binding and top edge._

 _"What do you think?" he muses as he gazes at the cover. A man and woman, their skin golden and wrapped in colourful garments, sit facing each other, seemingly deep in conversation. Above them, the night sky and stars dance, crescent moon bright over the title embossed in silver. "There's not much to do today, we could read a bit before dinner." It couldn't be so bad; Lilia had mentioned that Victor liked bedtime stories, and that it would surely do him good to read, being a little behind in his studies._

 _Yuuri settles them in the loveseat nestled in the corner, facing a cold fireplace. He adjusts the cushions, letting his long limbs spread over the plush material as Makkachin comes to lay at his feet and Victor's body presses into his side. He flips through the page until he finds the beginning. His arm wraps tighter around Victor's waist, his free hand adjusting his glasses on his nose and then nestling the book on his pushed knees._

" _ **It is written in the chronicles of the Sassanian monarchs that there once lived an illustrious prince, beloved by his own subjects for his wisdom and his prudence, and feared by his enemies for his courage and for the hardy and well-disciplined army of which he was the leader. This prince had two sons, the elder called Schah-riar, and the younger Schah-zenan, both equally good and deserving of praise."**_

 _By the time night falls he almost feels as if he's losing the ability to use his voice, hoarse from reading and clearing his throat and not drinking enough water. But he can't stop, won't stop. They reach a good portion of the novel until the bells rings. It is time for dinner._

 _Yuuri leaves Makkachin to sleep on the floor and lifts Victor in his arms as they descend to the kitchen._

When the Little Mermaid naively traded her voice to the Sea Witch in exchange for legs, she never thought that she would be losing everything that ever mattered to her, to any living and breathing being. Her freedom.

Victor, what will you deprive me of next?


	5. Bittersweet and strange

_Dinner is a quicker affair than lunch, the leftovers warming and thrumming in the microwave._

 _In spite of the lack of activity Yuuri feels the long day weighing on him, and it's not even eight o'clock yet. The Felstmans had left a little before lunchtime, around eleven, and he had remained in the kitchen long enough for them to eat only starting quarter to one._

 _Yuuri moves them to the dining room, using it more for its name than because he particularly wished to do so. Lilia had been meticulous on every aspect of the day, going as far as giving him lessons in silverware that he hadn't exactly felt the need to assimilate. His parents didn't own a restaurant within their inn for nothing, nor did they raise him uncivilly._

 _The head of the table stays empty, Yuuri finding it more appropriate to place Victor to its left and himself to the right. Even without Yakov Felstman here to fulfill his presumed role as head of the household, the seat carries an authority that would certainly be unbecoming of him to embrace. Yuuri was never one for power and control; having Victor sitting opposite him with Makkachin rubbing himself against the legs of their chairs, equal to equal, holds greater value. Other seats surround the tail of the grand table, empty of guests and platters._

 _His voice's intonation is reduced to little more than a croak he disguises behind a cough, throat drier than sandpaper. Yuuri had downed a good pitcher of water while waiting for their plates to heat up, and had put a kettle on to prepare them a teapot of green tea. Carrying it to the dining room and at the center of the table nearly burns his fingers, hissing when he finally sets it down._

 _White residue clings to his fingers, which he takes care to wipe down on his jeans before adjusting Victor's handkerchief under his shirt. It might be dust, given how deep the teapot was in the cupboard when he extracted it, though it lacks its thickness and wool-like texture. Powdery film tinges the collar of Victor's shirt when his knuckles dip to bury the fabric._

 _"Ah, sorry Victor!" Yuuri blurts out, brushing out the remains as best as he could, only managing to spread the markings on the material. Yuuri winces. He'd have some laundry to do._

 _"Sorry," he apologizes again. "I'll wash that for you during the week."_

 _He chances a glance at the windows. A storm is brewing outside, tree branches rustling with the wind and rain pelting on glass. He'd also have to check if the doors and window panes were locked before going to bed, to keep the water from seeping inside the house. Hopefully the weather would get better during the week, or at least enough to hang clothes._

 _The basement, which had also served its purpose as the laundry room, had been condemned years ago after heavy precipitations had flooded it. The damage has been so significant, according to Mr Fetsman, that they'd had to lock it down while waiting for someone to come repair all appliances. No one ever came._

 _A headache starts to crawl its ugly way into his head, as he moves back to his seat. His glasses sit uncomfortably on the bridge of his nose, sliding along its length and lowering dangerously over his half-eaten bowl. Blood pounds behind his eyeballs, prompting him to squeeze them shut to ease the pressure exhaustion and neon-bright light exhorts on them. No doubt sensing his fatigue, Makkachin rubs his head on his knee, letting Yuuri run his fingers through brown curls with numbed strokes under Victor's watchful gaze._

 _Several cups of tea later he feels at once lighter and heavier. Victor's head sinks like stone against his shoulder and he hugs him tighter against his body while his steps guide him to the little boy's room. He doesn't trust his body to hold Victor properly, fearing any wrong move could topple the poor thing to the ground. His cool cheeks, fresh from the moist cloth he'd cleaned him with, feel like heaven pressed against his flushed skin._

 _"Time for bed, Vicchan," he cooes with a pat on his shoulder. He sits him down on the mattress, back supported by twin pillows. Yuuri fumbles a little with the intricate buttons of his shirt, resin circles slipping from his grasp and somehow slotting themselves in place magically in their designated gussetts. Pants he makes a quicker work of, slipping and pulling after he removes Victor's baby-sized socks and assorted leather shoes. His weights sinks a little into the bed as he tucks him under the covers, pulling the duvet up to his chin. Yuuri smoothes out his fringe fondly, finger-combing the silver hair away from his 's blue irises catch the lamp light from the bedside table._

 _"Goodnight Victor," he whispers, leaning in to caress his cheek, until he suddenly stops._

 _Rule number ten:_

 _Kiss goodnight._

 _For some unknown, unexplainable reason, he isn't so sure of what to do. Lilia had never showed him what he should do for the nightly rituals, only telling him to brush his hair and put him in pajamas. Until he had come across the rule on the list earlier she had never mentioned it, and he hadn't thought about the matter any further. And now that he wants to ask, she was gone._

 _How strange. To spend a whole day with a doll by his side, treating him the way he would a toddler; carrying him about, feeding him, reading him stories... and yet here he is, feeling reluctant at the idea of giving him a kiss._

 _Victor wouldn't close his eyes, nor for lack of trying. His lids stubbornly stayed in place whenever he tried to lower them, turquoise orbs peering into his own._

 _Eyes are the window to your soul. But Victor didn't have a soul, did he? The idea of staring into something without a soul was... rather off-putting. Like kissing a man on his deathbed, a shell of a humanbeing._

 _Yuuri withdraws, wary of breaking eye contact with the doll. "I'll... see you tomorrow. You have a good night," he repeats, mostly to himself, finally breaking his gaze and letting it fall to the ground. His palm blindly reach for the light, finding the cord and switch. White rays converge on Victor's face when he turns off the light, obscuring his cheeks with blue hues. The door closes at Yuuri's back with a soft click and huff._

 _No sooner does he undress to his boxers and shirt and socks that he tumbles into bed, nose buried into the pillow. The rain lulls him to sleep, intersected by bouts of thunder._

 _He sets to work the same day, straight after breakfast._

 _Yuuri laughs sheepishly upon presenting Victor with only two buttered toasts alongside his sweetened milk tea. "Sorry buddy, but we're cutting down. You won't mind terribly, will you?"_

 _There isn't an ounce of fat in Victor's body, only blotches of healthy colors painted on his cheeks, inside his palms and under his heels. He takes his muteness for agreement and approval, placing his own toasts on another plate alongside his steaming mug of Earl Grey._

 _The room is quite spacious; his feet glide and sweep with purpose on the smooth floor covering, polished hardwood squeaking lightly under his steps. A series of floor-to-ceiling mirrors circumnavigate the dance studio, catching the morning light and reflecting it, their image brightening the space. High windows overlook the courtyard, tree branches tingling the bottom of the glass panes, misty light pooling inside onto sterile walls with patches of rugged plaster._

 _The waist-high barre fixed to the wall doesn't give, steel and steady under his hands. A sound system, thankfully compatible with CDs and his phone, stands on the other side of the room. Yuuri isn't even surprised to find no piano in the studio; he doubts Lilia Baranovskaya would ever have opened her door to aspiring dancers, reclusive as the family was. A large wall clock, ominous and sporadic, dominates the center of the opposite wall._

 _His reflection stares back at him in the mirror, lost in contemplation, and he daresay a contemptuous sort of daze. How does he move, how does he breathe? His ribcage feel trapped underneath the shapeless skin, belly slack and thighs pulling at inner stitches._

 _Yuuri knows his off-season appearance lacks beauty. Its plumpness, the rose color of his cheeks and flesh holds no appeal in health if it won't help him maintain his balance on his toes. Yuuri makes no effort in repressing the disgust rooted in his core. Although his clothes, a queer combination of baggy and tight contain most of his curves, there is no mistaking the roundness of his jaw, stark and protuberant and obscuring the greater part of his face. The heap of fattened limbs and buttocks, stretched underneath lycra and polyester. The face, lacking in expression and forlorn, entirely too vague._

 _Yuuri tests his limbs with moderate speed, stretches before the plunge. Hands move and fingers entwine behind his back, a trembling chin raises itself with the barest hint of boldness, chest forward and hips jutting from under the hem of a shirt, streaks of white lightning smear the bronzed skin. He raises his leg to the wall beside the window, stretching out a cramp._

 _His wracked body remains put together even in motion. Hands reconnect with feet, his fingers matching the toe in a mirrored lift, then finding the knee to ease its rise and fall. His back cambers into a tense bow, arms outstretched towards emptiness, cants both spine and hips until he feels their lunge sharply cutting through the air._

 _The figure of the predator never strays far away. At the back of his head, on the corner of his eye, he observes and Yuuri if he sees beyond him. If his glances are just a product of the human mind's innate ability to be distracted, or if he truly seeks him out. Does he track his movements with a judging eye, pupils following the contours of his flesh and itching to take a closer look at his form from his spectator's seat? Could it be that his gaze stays far longer than should be acceptable in public, that should be considered appropriate when lost in the study of a work of art? Does he pay close attention to the pursed lips, the flick of the pink tongue and the teeth biting softly into it in concentration? Does he entertain the idea of him as he was, legs and chest weighed down by clothes, hips bare during the faintest second, hands wrung and eyes unfocused?_

 _And yet there is no one. There's only room for him, for Victor and for his feelings. Even in this moment, the doll fades with the décor._

 _He allows himself to picture his body in its currently best light, in a better light. Flesh taut and strong, ligatures bulging when he arches his back and presents his bare neck to his image in a moment of cocky bravado. A peacock, seeking his enemy._

 _His body progressively uncurls from its shell, careful in its folding and undressing of conjunctures. The human animal purrs beneath his skin, a roar building in his lungs as the transformation reaches its hybrid proportions._

 _His echoes prowl around him, surge at every new angle he enters and transcend the depthless glass, partial views coming together from their kaleidoscope of arms and legs. Trance keeps him apperceptive of every square centimetre of skin, every nerve; the curved angle of his elbow, the pad of his heels grazing the air in disjointed circles, his exposed armpits and the muscles of his calves burning, the arc of his nape. Bestial effrontery takes over him, in his expressions if not through the canvas his body paints, the little rat beginning his transformation._

 _Centripedal energy throws his movements inwards and outwards in spasmodic beats, body recalcitrant and obeying to a supreme order. His flesh is sinous, curving with serpentine grace. Legs cluster and come apart, knees and back limber up alike and go back to rest, pulling back for the next trick of their cordless puppeteer._

 _Only when he ends with his rehearsal does he realize that he hasn't put any music on._

 _"Dance is poetry with arms and legs; it is matter, gracious and terrible, animated, embellished by movement," Baudelaire said._

 _He would have to see if there was some French poetry in the family library._

 _They fall into a routine of sorts from that day onwards. Yuuri wakes up at seven am sharp in the morning and "rouses" Victor gently, before preparing breakfast for the two of them, milk and toast for Victor that will inevitably finish in Makkachin's bowl, tea and toasts or occasionally juice and yogurt for him. From nine to noon Yuuri essentially lives and breathes in the dance studio, rediscovering the limits of his body under Victor's watchful eyes. After training comes lunch – smaller portions neither he nor his protégé protests – , then Victor's "lessons". Being unsure of what exactly he could teach Victor, he had resorted to reading him classics from the extensive library, taking advantage of the situation to polish his own French, and showing him some of his prowess on the pianoforte. Carried away by the sound of his own voice and the music blaring from the phonograph, they only resurface when it's time for dinner, eaten in the grand dining room. It always leaves Yuuri a wide time margin to tell Victor a story before putting him to bed._

 _A very domestic tableau overall, save for the fact that no kiss is exchanged between the two of them. Yuuri still hadn't been able to think outside of the bubble since the first night, the only concession to the rules he willingly makes. It still sits awkwardly on him, knowing the rule embodies the pinnacle of the list._

 _Yuuri is about to climb the stairs leading up tot he studio when the knock resounds at the door and startles him. When he turns, face carefully schooled in a blank expression, Chris' blurred face smiles at him from behind the glass. His hair looks too bright for the early morning, gold catching the rays and teeth pearly white._

 _What is he doing here, he wonders while he takes the last steps down, Victor balanced on his hip. A paper bag comes into view when he twists the doorknob, soon followed by Chris' large form._

 _"Hello there. I come bearing presents," he announces, lifting the bag in his hand and a bulky envelope in the other._

 _"How nice," Yuuri says with a smile, but stays firmly where he is in the doorway, arms wrapped around Victor. The movement doesn't go unnoticed by Chris._

 _"Oh, hi Victor." His hand comes to pat the top of Victor's silver hair. It takes everything Yuuri has to keep from recoiling._

 _ **What is wrong with you? It's just Chris.**_

 _"Sorry I didn't tell you about Victor." The Swiss man sounds apologetic, smile turning a little sheepish and concerned at the same time. What for, he can't imagine. "You know, what with the whole...thing." Eloquent._

 _"It's... fine, I guess," Yuuri assures him. "He's been charming."_

 _"I'm sure," Chris drawls, eyebrows drawn together and looking down at the doll in his arms. The way he looks at him, at them only makes him embrace Victor in a tighter embrace.. "Not that I don't like this place, but mind if we go inside?"_

 _"What was Victor like?"_

 _The question comes up after Yuuri makes them lunch, a simple yet effective dish of pasta carbonara he whisks up with Chris by his side as sous-chef. The blond had stayed long enough for him to call it quit on his dancing session and a good part of Victor's lesson, not that he minds too much after Chris presents him with the envelope; a thick stack of pounds greet from under the paper, more cash than he'd ever seen in his life. How strange, he ponders; a week has passed, and yet it felt like eternity._

 _Chris looks uncomfortable when he asks, glancing sideways at Victor's. The bacon, crispy and smoked, still sizzles under parmigiano and black pepper in Victor's plate of spaghetti. At least someone won't have to pay for Yuuri's indulgence._

 _"I'm... not sure how much I can actually tell you about that. Maybe it would be better if we went outside for that."_

 _Yuuri's glande darts from him, to Victor and back at him. "If there's anything you want to tell me you can say it with Victor present."_

 _Chris dejects at that. "That was kind of the point actually."_

 _It suddenly dawns on Yuuri that maybe it would be better to do as he says. Pity settles in his stomach, and the slightest bit of embarassment for refusing to comply._

 _He reaches for Victor's chair when he stands up but Chris' hand rises in the air. "Wait," Chris stops him. "Leave him here."_

 _Yuuri knows he looks crestfallen when Chris tells him so, and he's about to protest when Chris continues. "We won't be long, promise. I just want to show you something."_

 _A beat of silence passes, tension crackling between them until Yuuri retracts his fingers, not without reluctance. Chris goes to fetch both their coats and hands him his own._

 _Yuuri expects the grave when their steps bring them farther away from the house than he would have liked. What he doesn't expect, however, is for it to be two._

 _They stand side to side, twin engraved marble plaques firmly set into the ground._

 _The first reads: "Victor Nikiforov, 1983 – 1991. Beloved son."_

 _The second reads: "Alexander Nikiforov, 1983. Beloved son and brother."_

 _Yuuri represses a shiver at the sight, burying his nose deeper into his scarf. If Chris correctly guesses that his shivering results from something different from the cold, then he's polite enough to not mention it._

 _"Twins," he starts, speaking far too gravely for his voice to belong in his mouth. "Given how reclusive the Nikiforovs were at the time of the pregnancy they didn't know it was too late until the day came. Alexander was stillborn, dead long before birth. Only Victor survived."_

 _"Anastasia Nikiforov went mad when she found out. See, they had gone through a lot of trouble for her to become pregnant, so you can imagine how devastated she was."_

 _"From that day onwards she had very little to do in Victor's education. The woman completely neglected him, always going on about "Alexander this, her Sasha that..." she was a lost cause, but Vladimir Nikiforov wouldn't have any of that. He was the one who took care of Victor since his birth. He did everything he could so that his wife would at least acknowledge the child, and not finish her days in a mental asylum. But no matter what efforts he made, she would never relent. And when Victor grew up, she started to see him more, but she'd always call him Sasha."_

 _"Her obsession went to the point that she had a doll commissionned to look like Victor. She even had her personal hairdresser cut Victor's hair for the wig. He had it long before, you know? Down to his waist, but she had it cut so short there was almost nothing left of it once she was done."_

 _"When he died... that's when things got a little different. She started to refer to the doll as Victor after... after the accident. And she did so until both she and her husband passed away."_

 _Yuuri had stayed silent while Chris told him the story of the Nikiforov family, eyes trained on the graves, but there was something missing. A puzzle piece that wouldn't surface, a gaping hole in the blond's man narration that didn't tell him_

 _"What happened?"_

 _Chris was oddly silent for a moment before daring to answer. "About that... I'm going to assume that you mean both Victor's death and his parents on this, if you don't mind."_

 _"Now, there are two versions of both accidents. When it comes to Victor, he was in the car with a distant relative and his cousins, Mila and Georgi. The official version says that the car deviated off the road because of how slippery it was from the snow, and the report says the same concerning Anastasia and Vladimir's death."_

 _Yuuri turns to him, expectant. "And the unofficial version?"_

 _Chris inhales through his nostrils, hands buried in the pockets of his jeans. "The unofficial version is that Victor did it."_

 _Yuuri frowns. "I thought I said you didn't believe in ghosts!"_

 _Chris raises his hands in defence. "I don't, I'm just telling you what people think. There isn't much else to say about it but..."_

 _"But?"_

 _He sighs. "Alright so listen up; once I came here on Christmas week for a special delivery. Since they're Jewish the Feltsmans don't really celebrate it but as it is Victor's birthday falls on the same day, so two birds with one stone right?" Yuuri winces slightly at the phrasing. "Anyway Lilia was in the living room with the doll, wrapping presents. I guess this went as well as you thought it would. And Mr Feltsman was downtairs playing pool, drunk off his ass. He invited me to play with him too, so I joined him and got a couple drinks in me. He wouldn't stop saying that he'd had enough of this, of everything. And well, I pretty figured that he was talking about the whole doll issue so I thought I'd ask him what Victor was like before. And do you know what he said to me?"_

 _Yuuri shakes his head. "What did he say?"_

 _"Just one word: odd."_

 _"You sure you don't want me to stay over? It wouldn't be a problem you know." Chris sounds sincere in his proposal, but Yuuri doesn't have the heart nor the need to accept him._

 _"I'll be alright. I've got Makkachin, remember?" He smiles down at said dog, ruffling the top of his head affectionately. Makkachin barkes happily, tongue wagging and gazing up at him with an expression akin to adoring._

 _"Sure I do," Chris replies with carresses of his own. "But t's not Makkachin I'm worried about."_

 _This surprises Yuuri. "Victor won't hurt me, if that's what you're worried about."_

 _Chris smiles, but it feels a little forced "How do you know that?"_

 _"He's just a doll, Chris," Yuuri sighs with exasperation clear in his voice. " And I just do."_

" _It's just as you said. He's just a doll Yuuri, you don't have to do everything either."_

" _I know. And I don't, not really." It's an act of defiance of sorts, trying to assert that just because he's the Feltsmans' employee they don't rule him. The childishness he feels in going against the single rule of not kissing Victor goodnight sounds a little more valid by the minute, now that he would ever admit that to Chris._

 _"Still," and oh, he sure is persistent, he will give him that, "if I were you I would. I'd hate myself if I were to leave you alone. You sure I still can't convince you to get out of the house for a bit?"_

" _I already said no, Chris. Don't make me repeat myself."_

" _You know, all work and no play makes you a very dull boy."_

" _Well I was already dull to begin with," Yuuri mutters with more bite than intended, turning back to look at Chris. "Sorry for not meeting your expectations."_

 _Chris seems a little startled by his outburst, having probably not expected Yuuri to turn on him so sharply. Good, Yuuri thinks, let him know he is completely serious about the possibility of them together: it is null and void._

" _Offer's still up if you feel like it" Chris throws in a wink for good measure, and leaves Yuuri standing in the kitchen._

 _"I still don't understand why you didn't say yes. I mean, at least for the sake of professional courtesy."_

 _Yuuri snorts over the phone, playing absently with the plastic cord as it dangles against his bare legs "Professional courtesy my ass."_

 _"Well at least he tried, you've got to give him that," Phichit laughs._

 _"Yeah, and I already made it clear that I wasn't interested."_

 _Sadly, for all that he is his best friend Phichit is every bit as stubborn as he is. "Why not? I mean he's gorgeous right? And he sounds fun from what you told me, so what's stopping you?"_

 _Yuuri sighs into the mouthpiece, turning on his heels. "I can't leave Victor alone, Phichit. I just don't want to, you know?"_

 _It's Phichit's turn to sigh from the other side of the world, no doubt thinking he must be stupid. "Yuuri, he's a doll. The worst thing that could possibly happen to him would be to not let you go on your date. Which he won't because he is a doll."_

 _For some reason his argument does little to reassure him. "Yes but suppose something goes on while I'm not here? Suppose a thief comes during the night and robs everything in the house and take him away?"_

 _Phichit's voice when he speaks back a moment later carries a long-suffering note to it: if he didn't know better he'd say the Thai skater is annoyed. "Yuuri... you're exaggerating. You've got his number right? Call him. Now! That is, after we're done talking of course but call him."_

 _"He's..." Yuuri starts feebly. "He's not my type."_

 _"Shut. Up. Tall and blonde with clear eyes? He's definitely your type!"_

 _"Maybe I don't like his type so much anymore," Yuuri retorts._

 _"Come on, now you're playing hard to get."_

 _The comment spurs something deep and red in Yuuri's guts. "First things first, that's an excuse assholes use on people when they're not being given what they want. Two, I don't owe him shit. He didn't even tell me I'd be babysitting a doll, for fuck's sake! Just because the guy brought me beer doesn't make him my future husband."_

 _"Hey hey relax, I was just kidding. Hold on, he brought you beer?"_

 _"Yup, pretty good one at that." If there's about one thing he can concede Chris, it's that he knows his beers. The one he had brought back with him, a six-pack of beer cut with what tastes like lemonade, leaves a cool but pleasant taste in his mouth. He takes another swig from the bottle then turns to put it back on top of his drawer, when something catches his eyes._

 _From the other side of the door, right opposite his room, Victor is staring at him._

 _I didn't put you in that position, Yuuri muses, the realization twisting at something in his belly. He had put him on the bed in such a way that he would be laying on his back, as if sleeping._

 _But now here he was, sitting upright with his back supported by the pillows, head directly facing Yuuri's room. And looking straight into Yuuri's eyes. He suddenly feels very naked before the doll's gaze, dressed down to a large shirt that barely went past his upper tights and his boxers._

 _"What's wrong?" a voice makes him jolt. Phichit was still on the phone._

 _"Uh, nothing, nothing," Yuuri tells him hurriedly, reaching for the door and closing it with the tip of his foot. The door clicked behind him as he made his way back to the bed. "Anyway you said you had something to tell me?"_

 _Phichit didn't waste time in elaborating. "Yuri came to the rink today, started asking questions."_

 _Oh no. Yuuri's blood ran cold. "What happened?"_

 _Phichit sighs on the other end, and if he were there Yuuri is certain he'd be running his hands through his hair in frustration. "Look, don't be mad okay, but he started talking to Minami, and you know how he is right? The kid loves you and all but Yuri just wouldn't let him go before he had an answer."_

 _"Phichit what happened?"_

 _He exhaled. "He knows you're in the UK."_

 _He can feel the exact moment his heart seems to stop beating in his chest. Shit. Yuuri vocally echoes the sentiment just as much._

" _Hey look," Phichit hastily tries to reassure him. "On the plus side he doesn't know where you're staying. I don't even know where you're staying."_

" _This is Yuri we're talking about, Phichit," Yuuri mutters darkly. "He won't stop until he has me right where he wants me."_

" _He's not getting anywhere near you. His coach has already talked him of looking for you, surely he won't be able to find out more."_

 _Yuuri only wishes he had as much confidence as his best friend in his own words._

 _Yuuri never takes up the offer Chris extended him. Straight after Phichit's call he decides to take a late night shower, if only to ease the tension that had seeped into his shoulders and remained there all day long._

 _The scalding water burns his skin red, hot air rising in the cabin and threatening to suffocate him, and yet the hot liquid has a strangely relaxing effect on his muscles. He allows himself to relax, tension from his limbs bleeding out as he presses one hand to the wall to steady himself. His head bends slightly forward, black fringe and dense fog obscuring his already blurry vision. His free hand feels for the soft spots, the nerves still taut under his skin, fingertips feeling and exploring his bruised parts in the intimacy of the bathroom's shower cabinet._

 _Yuuri closes his eyes and leans his forehead against the cool tiles when his hand finds his member, and starts to thinks. His vision slowly materializes itself before him. Long, snow-kissed hair flowing on his back, brushing the back of his neck when he bends to kiss Yuuri, fringe falling on Yuuri's forehead and mingling with his own raven locks. Silver-blonde strands and pale arms framing him, akin to curtains hiding them from the world, protecting them from harm. Invisible to the outside._

 _His breath hitches as his strokes become languid, mimicking a lover's touch, the careful shedding of clothes and the first tentative brush of skin. The nibble of a lip against another, the touch of a finger to knuckles, the dip of the mattress. Then his carresses turn more herratic as the lovers gain assurance, pace quickening and bodies clutching at each other, locked in an elbrace where neither knows where one begins and the other ends, sprawled under the sheets and yet bare for the world to see them freely, indecent and yet blissful._

 _He comes with a scream, panting harshly against his palm as he rides out his high, sinking to his knees and letting the water wash out the remains of his remisnicing._

 _He's making breakfast for two the next morning, as per tradition, when the noise starts. He freezes when he perceives it, lost as he had been in his thoughts. Somethings clinks under his feet, a soft, almost muffled voice that tells him it can only come from under._

 _The study._

 _"Chris?" Yuuri calls out from the kitchen as he turns off the gas stove, turning to take Victor in his arms. When he receives no response, he goes for the stairs and descends them, calling out one more time._

 _"Chris?"_

 _The door to the study is ajar, light filtering from under it. The clinking noise resounds again, a little louder and a little clearer. Chris still isn't answering._

 _"Chris?" his voice falters._

 _The noise suddenly stops._

 _Without thinking twice Yuuri takes hold of the door knob and opens it wide._

 _And freezes._

 _"Hello Yuuri."_

 _Yuri Plisetsky has found him._


	6. Knowing you were wrong

_**Extracts from Yuuri Katsuki's diary, Evidence 02-15-19-27-40**_

 _It is over._

 _Funny how three little words can change the course of your life in a split second. Blink and you'll miss it._

 _During my first year we had this professor in psych 101 who had us write as many possible different sequences of words as we could manage without thinking too much. It started out words, and then it became sentences, then texts. A surrealistic train of thought, he called it, as if it weren't the greatest contradiction one could come across in a psychology class._

 _Write me a story in three words, he said. Make it simple, make it tragic, make me cry._

 _[...]_

 _It is over._

 _I love you._

 _I hate you._

 _I miss you._

 _I don't care._

 _You are pathetic._

 _I am sorry._

 _Not worth shit._

 _This ends now._

 _Pull the trigger._

 _I dare you._

 _You fucking pig._

 _I'll kill you._

 _I can go on forever. I could have given him a haiku, one, two, a thousand if he had wished for them._

 _[...]_

 _Three little words and I feel as if I've committed the worst crime in human history. Like I have borne witness to a death I myself am responsible for._

 _Phichit says it's for the best. Mom, Dad and Mari only just found out and I think they still have to process everything. I think we all do._

 _[...]_

 _They say everything must come to an end, such is the nature of all things. Then why do I feel as if we were doomed for the start?_

 _You should never meet your heroes. Because once you do they will crawl right inside your heart and make you their bitch. They will become a permanent fixture in your life and they will poison your blood and desecrate you and tear you to pieces until you are but a piece of your own jigsaw that will never come together._

 _[...]_

 _I used to admire him, you know._

 _One moment he's screaming at me and the other he's holding me in his arms and telling me that I know he doesn't mean it that way. One moment I am soaring into the sky, floating right above ice, and the other I'm stumbling and he's looking the other way._

 _There's no way we can share the same name, no way I can be student to one Yuri Plisetsky, living legend of figure skating and five-time gold medallist if all of his hard work amounts to my failure._

 _There's not enough place on the ice for two Yuris._

 _There can only be one Yuuri Katsuki. I hope he comes to the realization there can't be a Yuri Plisetsky without me._

 _[...]_

 _Now I see him everywhere I go, and yet I don't. I see ghosts of him, his features reflected in anyone whose path I cross. The small details, the more significant ones. I hate myself because everyday I lose sight of him, and it hurts more than I'd like to admit. You fall in love for a stranger, a face with whom you've barely exchanged more than ten nice words with in your life, and the next thing you know you're forgetting what he looks like, what his voice sounded like, the smallest tremors and the stronger, rougher notes._

 _But you never really forget, do you?_

 _I for one don't._

 _[...]_

 _I love him. I loved him. I hate him. I want to hate him._

 _I still bear his marks on my skin. I still feel parts of me itching from where he touched me. I wish he would take that disgusting cigarette of his and burn them, shove the stub into my skin and watch me burn to cinders. If anything it would feel better than all the times he ever maid a hand on me._

 _[...]_

 _Otabek sent me a email. He says that he's very sorry about what happened and that Yuri wanted to apologize. I shouldn't be surprised. Trust him to run back to his best friend after dumping me like trash without a word. Not a goodbye, nothing._

 _I told him to go fuck himself, then I backtracked and told him that as much as I appreciated his support I'd prefer to be left alone, and then again I told him to mind his own business, then asked what it felt like to screw my ex (coach-slash-lover-slash-jailer; I removed the slashes afterwards and just drew a bar on everything). I must have rewritten my email a thousand times before I found the right words._

 _"I'm sorry too._

 _Yuuri Katsuki."_

 _[...]_

 _Nikolai Plisetsky drove me to the aiport. He, of all people, seemed sad to watch me leave the country. Yuri didn't give a sign of life after the entire debacle unfolded. He even told me he was sorry. What I would give to not hear that word anymore._

 _"What are you sorry for?" I wanted to say. I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell at him, I wanted to hurt him for letting Yuri hurt me, and yet I did none of it. I'm sure it must have been painful for him, picking the trash after his grandson, moreso when it had the same name; some people just won't accept it, or will put it under "coincidences we'll never look back on in the near future". I never wished for another name in this moment._

 _I just hugged him back, grabbed my suitcase and didn't look bac on the way to the airplane._

 _[...]_

 _Yuri._

 _Don't find me._

 _Don't you dare._

 _"And who's Chris?" Yuri asks with eyes only for Yuuri from where he stands, cocked hip leaning against the billiard table and cue still firmly in hand. Yuuri's gaze flitted to it, noting for the first time how long and heavy it looked. Chris and him had played a couple of times when he had come to visit, but up to this moment he had never thought of it as dangerous. Maybe difficult to handle when put in hands as clumsy as Yuuri's, but never dangerous. Seeing the artefact in Yuri's hand for the first time, practically dangling as if it were a bat, made him tighten his grip on Victor and bury his face in his neck._

 _Yuuri's silence sounds like encouragement enough for Yuri to switch the cue from hand to hand, the tip briefly drawing a circle in the air and pointing at Yuuri as it settles in Yuri's right hand. He takes steps forward, while Yuuri takes his own backwards in a reversed mirror reflection. Yuri isn't once dettered._

 _"I was gonna call, you know, or send you a letter." The wooden tip oscillates in the air at a nearly flat angle, moving back and forth in Yuri's left palm. It slaps the skin repeatedly, reddening its center._

 _"But you know me." Yuri's smile when he eventually stops a few feet away from him, and yet painfully close, looks as fond as it is remorseful, the corners of his mouth trembling slightly as if in great effort._

 _It makes Yuuri want to slap him._

 _But do I know you? Yuuri mentally counters. And then, yes, I do, don't I?_

 _"Never been one for writing." Standing before him, Yuuri is painfully reminded of how much older Yuri is. He hovers over him by a good head, somehow looking much taller than the last time he had seen him. His hair is longer too, honey-dew colored and tied back in a ponytail that sweeps along his back when he turns his head sideways. The older man looks tired and thinner; maybe an effect of the lights and shadows of the study, but there's no denying that his muscles and legs don't look so visible under the material of his clothes. Sporting gear, Yuuri remarks taking in his Team Russia jacket, and the black turtleneck peeking below, leggings and sneakers._

 _Like it is just another day. As if he just came back from the rink in St Petersburg, or will leave for it._

 _Yes, that's right. He should leave. He shouldn't be here in the first place._

" _How did you get inside?" he whispers, his hands stiffening from where they hold Victor up._

 _Yuri simply shrugs. "The door was open. You know, you might want to be careful with that, anyone could come in."_

 _Oh don't I know..._

 _"This the little fella?" Yuuri's fingers clench on the fabric of Victor's suit when Yuri's own forefinger points at the little boy. Seizing, accusing, trained directly on him like a gun. He looks curious, but in Yuuri's head the lilt of his head rivals that of a tiger's ears straining to hear their prey moving._

 _"What's his name?" Yuri continues, now a few steps closer to them. Yuuri backs away when the pale hand almost brushes the top of Victor's silver head. How dare he even think of touching him?_

 _"Victor," Yuuri declares, eyes fixed on him, glacing sideways at Victor to make sure he was still there, in one piece. To his ears his statement has the weight of a question but he knows the other Russian in the room got his answer._

 _Yuri leans into his space to get a better look at him, and for a split second he looks genuinely interested in getting to know him. Yuuri buries Victor's head in his collarbone, his own nose teasing a tuff of blond hair on his small head._

 _The ghost of a expression crosses Yuri's face, a mixture of incredulity, curiousness... and anger._

" _Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me," Yuri guffaws. "This is a joke, right? A real little boy is gonna come out of here and run into the room."_

 _Yuuri dares to exhale before answering, Victor's head still pressed into the crook of his neck and wraps his arms tighter around his middle, in an attempt to protect him, shield him from Yuri's growing ire._

" _You don't get to ask me questions when you're the one who ran away and turned your back on me like a coward," is what he wants to say._

 _But the words never come out. Instead he says: "There's no boy, Yuri. They... they pay me to look after a doll."_

 _Yuri scoffs, the look on his face nearly hilarious. Yuuri knows he would have laughed if not for the gravity of the situation. "Are you serious?" He huffs, then chuckles lightly and moves back to the pool table. Yuuri inhales sharply, and takes his own steps to the back, setting Victor in a corner._

 _"Well, this makes things a hell of a lot simpler. All the way here I was thinking about how I was gonna have to try and convince you to come home and leave the boy and all this shit but now..."_

 _Now you've gone and done it._

 _"Once we get back we're gonna have to put you back in shape. I mean there's no way this shithole has any skating rink near, and heavens knows how you aren't fat as a pig now... Obviously I'll have to ask Dedushka to go easy on the pirozhki."_

 _They move to the dining room deep into the evening, long after sun set and there was nothing left to see but the moon from the windows. This time, Yuuri sits Victor at the head of the table, leaving him to watch over Yuri while he puts the final touches to their meals. If Yuri has anything to say about the doll's presence, he is smart enough not to comment on it._

 _Yuri eagerly digs into his plate, a whole serving of medium rare steak coupled with eggs and hash browns, with root beer on the side. Victor's dinner remains before him, quite unpolished while Yuuri plays around with his food, the yolk dribbling from his fork's teeth probably the healthiest part of the dish. He hadn't bothered to make salad nor to add grean leaves, going instead for the faster, greasier alternative. Any other day he would have chastised himself for such a copious dish, knowing by experience that it would sit hevaily on his stomach the next day and he would have to compensate with longer, harder exercises. If he still had his shoes he could have gone running but they had yet to reappear._

 _He glances at Victor, one of the two not particularly relishing his dinner. He sits on the chair in a rather prim fashion, the prince of the house, or rather the king in his throne. He truly belongs there, blending in with the rest of the room decked in a navy blue suit complete with a small bowtie, pocketed handkerchief and leather shoes. A good boy, back straight and hands firmly kept on his lap. And yet his face, his eyes seem to be turned away from him, away from the center of the table; his hips form a strange angle against the back of the chair, a clear indication that he isn't so well seated either for the occasion._

 _And yet this occasion isn't one for celebrating, in spite of the richness of the food presented before him._

 _So why is he turned Yuri's way?_

 _Yuri's voice breaks him out of his concentration. "I already convinced Celestino to let me coach you again, it won't be easy what with me going back to the ice but it's nothing I can't manage. And I already have choreographies in mind for you! All we need now is to find you some sponsors and someone to design your costumes and – "_

 _"I'm not going back with you." Yuuri cuts. His voice barely reaches above a whisper, which is why he is surprised to find it breaching the silence imposed on his lips._

 _"Excuse me?" Yuri mutters. Yuuri's toes plant firmly on the floor, legs closing like a pair of scissors. Swiftly, imminently._

 _The words pulled out of him are clearer this time, louder and much more audible. "I said I'm not going back with you, Yuri."_

 _"Did you just speak?" Yuri snarls and **oh** , there it is. "Because all I'm hearing right now is background noise."_

 _"Yes, I just did. And since you're stupid enough not to listen I'll say it one more time." Yuuri stands up, rising above Yuri with his hands planted on each side of his plate. "I. Am. Not. Going back with you," he hammers, tongue clicking against his palate as he enunciates the words. "Not to Moscow, not to the States, not anywhere."_

 _He had it coming. He knows he did. And yet he still manages to be taken by surprise when Yuri rises from his own chair abruptly and moves with almost superhuman speed to slam him against the wall. He gasps when a picture frame digs into his cheek._

 _"Like hell you are," he snarls in his ear, no longer faking niceties with him. "You owe me a gold medal for the humiliation you put me through. And if I have to drag you by the fat to get you out of here, I will."_

 _"I thought you wanted that gold medal, piggy. Don't tell me you're backing out **again**..." Yuri taunts, pressed uncomfortably close to his side, hands around his throat. He's close to choking on his own spit, the blunt force keeping him from breathing properly. "What would your family say? What would Minako think and oh, your poor mother."_

 _You asshole, his mind screams. But as fast as the attack came it stops. Yuri takes a step back and lets him fall to the ground, his knees hitting the hardwood none too gently. He coughs harshly, trying to get back the air he lost._

 _"We're leaving tomorrow." There's not a trace of hesitation in his voice. "You better have everything ready and packed by noon."_

 _The "or what" has no room in the sentence, and yet the unspoken threat hangs in the air, follows Yuri out and lingers in the dining room. Yuuri sits back against the wall, trying and failing to calm his breathing and contain the sobs bubbling inside him._

 _From his privileged seat, Victor sees and hears everything._

 _He lies in Victor's bed a few hours later, Yuri out like a light downstairs and buried under the covers and pillow Yuuri lended him. He almost envies him his peacefulness of mind. It must be the greatest feeling in the world, to know you have undisputed power over someone else, to know for a fact that no matter what could possibly happen, the world would bend at your will._

 _Yuuri caresses Victor's cheek, cool and pale to the touch. His fingers trace small shadows along the cheekbone, lit by moonlight filtering from the window. He looks just like a child should be, acts just like one should; his sweet, sweet little boy. If only he were really there._

 _Yakov Feltsman's words echo in the back of his skull, **"Victor is very much here with us, in body and spirit."** He wills himself to believe it._

 _"Don't worry Victor," he murmurs into his hair, inhaling its clean scent. "I'm not going to leave you." The tears threaten to escape his eyes once more. "You won't let me leave, right Victor?"_

 _The silence is his only answer._

 _He takes it as a yes. He **knows** it's a yes. "Then you have to help me, ok?"_

 _Yuuri falls asleep to a lullaby on his lips and Victor's hard body of porcelain against his chest._

 _When he wakes up, Victor is nowhere in sight._

 _"Yuuri!"_

 _A scream fully jolts him awake, still dazed and panicked as he is to find the spot next to him cold and empty. Without a second thought he hurtles down the stairs leading to the study._

 _When his steps finally have him out of breath, heaving on the threshold of the study, Yuuri is leaning over the billiard table, long golden hair falling in front of his face and hiding his expression under the blond fringe. Once he realizes Yuuri is in the room, he takes powerful strides in his direction, bringing them face to face in only a few steps. Yuuri doesn't have time to move away until Yuri practically shoves himself at him._

 _"Did you do this?"_

 _Do what, the questions hangs on the tip of his tongue, but dies out fast once he catches sight of what Yuri is referring to._

 _The words "Get Out" drip from the ceiling, written thickly in dark red. The remains of rats, their gutted bodies lying a few feet away on the floor of the living room, are indication enough that the words were not written in blood._

 _And Victor sits in a corner right in their direction._

 _Yuuri's heart stutters when his eyes fall on him._

 _No._

 _No, it couldn't be._

 _Yuri follows his gaze, incredulous. "You're not really going to tell that the fucking doll did that?"_

 _His only answer is to run to Victor, scooping him up in his arms the sole instinctive move he can think of pulling. Yuuri exhales in relief once Victor finds his way in his embrace, fitting naturally between his limbs and his heart. He turns back in time to face Yuri, dangerously closing onto the two of them._

 _"Don't pull this shit on me, Yuuri!" He yells, his finger pointing accusingly at him. Yuuri stands his ground, staring him directly in the eye and keeping Victor close to him. Yuri comes to a standstill a few feet away from them, hands waving around almost as if it surrender._

 _"Okay, fine." He makes to move on his left, making Yuuri move to his own side, the two circling each other and mirroring their steps without once leaving the twin stare. "Let's say it wasn't you. Say it was really the doll."_

 _Silence stretches between them, neither quite daring to move. Yuuri barely notices himself standing on his toes, ready to run for the exit should Yuri try anything. But he would never make it far. He knows it. His feet are bare, and still hurting from the blisters he's garnered in those long weeks of practice. Not only would he risk slipping on the carpet and making both Victor and himself fall in an attempt to escape, but he wouldn't outrun Yuri, who still has his trainers on. This, and he hadn't thought of taking the housekeys with him – really, why would he even have considered it in the first place? So locking him inside the room isn't an option._

 _Yuri extends a hand, emerald eyes hard beneath his tousled fringe. "Give it to me."_

 _Yuuri takes a step back, his hands tightening on Victor's nape._

 _"Give it to me, Yuuri." Yuri waves his hand impatiently, openly sneering at the doll._

 _"No." Yuuri quickly shakes his head and bolts to the door, Yuri on his heels._

 _"Hand him over!"_

 _"No!"_

 _Yuri crashes into him, almost pulling him to the ground roughly but Yuuri manages to steady himself as he tumbles inside the dressing room adjoined to the study. Wood digs harshly into his lower back, making him hiss as he steadies himself again only to realize one thing._

 _He's not holding Victor anymore._

 _Instead, he is dangling in Yuri's grasp, arm limp and close to giving from the way it hangs and drags on the floor._

 _"Yuri, no! You don't understand. The doll – "_

 _"Oh I think I understand perfectly what is going on here," Yuri cuts, wiping spit off his lips. He seizes Victor by his waist, making him pass from one hand to another. Panic rises in Yuuri as he watches him roughly manhandling Victor._

 _"Yuri," he whimpers. "No, please, Yuri..."_

 _Yuri swings on his feet, somehow pleased by the alarm in Yuuri's voice. Victor disappears from his sight, balanced behind Yuri's back and then surfacing again in front of him. Yuuri itches to stop him, reaching out to grasp at the fabric of his pajamas, his hair, his hand, anything._

 _Yuri finally stops spinning, still keeping Victor out of Yuuri's reach, and sighs. The expression on his face, kept carefully blank, does nothing to appease Yuuri._

 _"Fine."_

 _It is his only warning, before he turns Victor upside down and grabs him by the legs. Victor's body momentarily suspends in the air before it crashes down. His head smashes on the floor, shattering it into a thousand pieces of porcelain and dust._

 _That's when the house starts to shake._

 _The floor seems to groan under their feet, picture frames rattle on the walls and the lights flicker, turning on an off sporadically. Breaking Victor seems to have unleashed something that thrums impatiently throughout the house, letting loose some creature, some spirit that is close to tearing down the house. Awakened, and unhinged._

 _And then it stops. As fast as it came._

 _Yuri turns to Yuuri, who only looks around him frantically, looking for the source of the disturbance._

 _A single tall mirror keeps on quivering inside its wooden frame, surface rippling like a pool of clear, silvery water. Yuri strides to it as Yuuri gets back on his feet, trying to stop._

 _"Yuri, I think we need to leave."_

 _"Wait." Yuri lifts a hand, taking slow steps towards the convulsing mirror. It reflects his image, trembling slightly agains the wall._

 _Yuuri looks to the door, knees buckling under him and yet not moving an inch. "Yuri please..."_

 _"Hush." Yuri presses his ear to the mirror, holding a hand as it reaching out to something Yuuri couldn't see._

 _The clatter continues behind the smooth surface, a sharp, metallic sound that makes him think of someone dragging something heavy behind them. It goes on for a few seconds, then stills. Yuri exhales sharply and turns back to Yuuri._

 _"I think there's something – "_

 _The explosion cuts him off, sending him flying to the ground and nearly knowking him out. Yuuri gasps, the burst snapping out of his trance as he crawls on his knees rapidly to where Yuri lies, taking care not to walk on fragments of glass. At first sight Yuri doesn't seem to be suffering from anything, or to be bleeding, just shaken._

 _"Oh my God," Yuuri breathes out. "Are you alright?"_

 _"Yuuri."_

 _Yuuri's head rises up, sharply turning to the mirror._

 _Something just called out to him._

 _He turns to Yuri, who's rubbing a hand against the back of his head and checking for bleeding and possible bumps._

 _"Yuuri."_

 _The voice has an insistent edge to it, something low but nevertheless audible at the surface. He also notes how high-pitched it sounds, unlike Yuri's own gruff voice._

 _A screams locks itself in his throat when a hand surfaces from the mirror-sized hole in the wall._

 _Yuuri rises to his feet with difficulty, watching as the hand becomes an arm, then morphs into another hand and another arm from one side of the hole to another. The thing pulls itself to the surface with excruciating slowness, its chest materializing within the pitch black hole and pulling itself into the light. Legs emerge from under it, and the glimpse of a clothed leg, covered in denim and a shoe, brings Yuuri back to reality with a start. His knees almost give from under him._

 _This thing – it's human._

 _Its head ultimately breaks through the darkness. A long, dirty face stares them down, devoid of emotion save for the thin line of lips pressed together, and the darkened slits looking at them from underneath the pale mask, barely obscured by strands of silver hair._

 _Puzzle pieces put themselves together in Yuuri's head, until there is no other truth conceivable._

 _ **"Once you rule out the impossible, whatever remains—however improbable—must be true."**_

 _"Victor?"_

 _It can't be..._

 _It rears its ugly head Yuuri's way, and he becomes aware that he was the one who spoke its name._

 _ **His** name._

 _The small beads he has for eyes appear to soften when they set on him, pupils slightly smaller and blue irises focusing wholly on his person. Lights reflects itself within the circles, now so clear Yuuri can almost see himself in them from afar, hardly just a line cutting through the globes and parting them in the middle._

 _Yuuri stands frozen as Victor takes a hesitant step in his direction, feet shuffling on the hardwood. Yuri abruptly interposes between them, lauching himself at Victor but not managing to make him fall. His eyes darken again and he pushes Yuri off him, throwing him to the ground. Victor's right hand bundle into a fist, diving to meet Yuri's cheek in a bone-crushing punch._

 _This breaks Yuuri out of his daze._

 _"Wait, no!"_

 _Yuuri goes to grab his shoulders but is pushed away harshly by Victor. He stumbles backwards, helpless as the two keep pulling their punches and going as each other, Yuri still under Victor and looking worse for wear. Victor's knuckles hit him until Yuri has no other choice but to put his hands up to protect his face, the perfect defense for Victor to wrap his hands around his throat._

 _Before he can launch himself at Victor again, arms wrap themselves around his waits and pull him back. He gasps when his arms are locked in a tight grip and held behind his back, keeping him from moving._

 _"Don't move," Chris' voice hisses in his ear, pressed uncomfortably close to his back. A single hand blocks his wrist, while his arm has wrapped itself around his throat in a tight hook, nearly knowking the breath out of him. Yuuri screams and thrashes against his body, but there is little he can do to fight back the stronger, more powerful hold._

 _A choked whimper stops Yuuri dead on his tracks. He ceases to defend himself and looks back down at where Victor and Yuri were fighting. Or rather, had been fighting._

 _A long, pointy shard of porcelain protudes from Yuri's neck, buried deep enough for the flesh to part between the material, blood flowing from the cut and spreading under Yuri's form like a flower. Victor still holds him down as he empties himself on the floor._

 _"He shouldn't have come here. This is all he gets for snooping around," Chris whispers in his ear, guilt seeping into the dulcet tones of his voice in spite of the way the words slip in Yuuri's ear, hard and promising a fate possibly worse than death._

 _Without a second thought, Yuuri bites into the hand securing his jaw shut, digging his teeth into the flesh until he can feel blood spill under his tongue and bones break. Chris yells and removes his hand, throwing Yuuri down as he clutches his severed hand. The imprint of teeth is clear, the half-circle of bruised flesh crimson under the lamplights. The older man looks him down with fury in his eyes._

 _"You little bitch!" he snarls, prepared to jump onto him and strangle him with his free hand. Yuuri crawls back on the floor, hardwood squawking under him as he pushes his body to the wall._

 _But before Chris can lay a hand on him, a snap reverbates in the room. The light dies out from Chris' gaze, pupils blown wide open and looking darker than they had. His mouth puckers into an "o" as the skin of his face goes slack and his knees give under him. Yuuri barely has time to move away when Chris falls beside him, head hanging limply on his shoulders at an odd angle._

 _Where Chris once stood, Victor is._

 _Or rather, who he believes to be Victor._

 _His head tilts a little to the side at a small angle that serves its purpose of enhacing his partially obscured features.Victor was built like a tank, towering above Yuuri by what appeared to be a good head, doted with broad shoulders and muscular arms that would definitely engulf Yuuri if he were to be anywhere close._

 _He's not a child, Yuuri thought dumbly._

 _He was once a child, a small voice chirps at the back of Yuuri's mind, sounding disturbingly like Victor's own. He shuts it out in the back of a room, trapped and howling like the wind within a room Yuuri puts under lock and key._

 _He may have his voice, and he may have his hair, and his eyes, and the same pale skin, but he is not my Victor._

" _Did he hurt you?" the voice startles him from his trail of thoughts. Unlike his Victor's voice, this one comes off as gruff, raw and dry from what he guesses to be lack of use. The syllables that roll off the tongue underneath the mask sound as distant as they are close, vibrating beneath the fake visage and acquiring more texture, more reality than the familiar words that had slipped from his mouth earlier._

 _"Yuuri?" the same voice cuts into him again._

 _For a split second, he wonders who he means. Yuri, Chris? And then – does it even matter?_

 _My name, Yuuri muses as his gaze lifts to meet the man's own._

 _He said my name._

" _No."_

 _Yuuri doesn't dare to move when Victor gets down on one knee next to him, suddenly far closer to his face than he was merely seconds ago. Part of him internally flinches when the foreign palms rise, hovering in front of his head, and finally cradles his face, reverently but quivering... As if Yuuri were the one made of porcelain, as if he would crumple to dust should he handle him without utmost care, do so much as breathe in his direction._

 _His fingertips are calloused to the touch, unlike Victor's own polished, silky-like flesh which used to cool down the heat in his cheeks when he pulled him close to him. These hands are a connection of nerves and ligaments and flesh and muscles, quite unlike the intricate structure and fragile of thread and ceramic Victor had been made of. Strong, hard-working hands._

 _And yet, to think that the pounds of lean muscle could be rendered useless against Yuuri's words._

 _His voice was his only weapon. His shrill, raspy nightingale chirp of a voice drowned by this boy – this man's – strength, was his sole means of escaping._

" _You should go to bed," he finds himself saying, the words falling distantly from his ears as if he hadn't been the one to speak them in the first place._

 _The face beneath the mask looks as if it were frowning, the two marble-like irises turning into blackened slits._

" _It's late Victor," he repeats with a little more confidence in his voice, something inside him awakening and taking over Yuuri's stoicness in the face of the current situation. "You should already be in bed."_

 _To his surprise, it feels as if it were triggering something into him, his chest stuttering a little instead of simply rising from the intake of breath._

 _Both arise from their position, gazes still locked together, Victor steps back to let Yuuri move before he does. Wary of his actions – his or Victor's, it is hard to tell anymore –, he holds his own stare as he backs away to the threshold, his steps already taking him to the master bedroom._

 _Yuuri makes to turn until Victor's hand shots up and clenches his own. He almost falls from the sudden touch, if not from the way Victor squeezes his palm against his own._

 _He doesn't want his tenderness, and this comfort, he tells himself as he leads them to the bedroom, breath stuck in his throat._

 _Thankfully Victor seems to play right into his hand, even going as far as pulling his lean body under the covers, still wearing his shoes and blood-tainted clothes._

" _Good night, Victor," Yuuri whispers as he makes to back away from the bed._

 _Victor's hand shots up again to seize his wrist, promptly stopping him._

" _Kiss," he whispers under the mask._

 _Yuuri exhales, trying to keep hisface as neutral and severe as possible._

" _No kiss, Victor. It's your punishment for tonight."_

 _He means to escape, but Victor's hand on his wrist tightens in a bruising hold._

" _Kiss," he whimpers underneath the mask, sounding for all Yuuri can think of like a puppy. If it weren't for the way his eyes squint up at him, the plea buried between the slits of his eyes, he is certain they would be like a puppy's too._

 _I haven't caught sight of Makkachin, he thinks fleetingly as he bends forward, steadying himself on his hands pressed on either side of Victor. Yuuri wills himself not to look him in the eye as his eyelids flutter close, his lips pressing into the top of Victor's right cheekbone._

 _And then Victor seizes his arms and pulls him closer, crashing the porcelain lips against Yuuri's jaw. Yuuri sobs as ceramic clangs under his gritted teeth, forcing his lips apart to explore the rest of him. A single tear trails down on his cheek, falling onto the mask._

 _Yuuri gasps when he pulls back, his breath cutting through the silence like a knife. As if the mask's porcelain mouth were a conduit for Victor's own, flesh surfacing through clay and varnish, powerful enough to take his breath away._

 _Victor stares back at him, pupils dark without a trace of blue in them._

 _Yuuri bolts for the door._


	7. Beauty and the Beast

Yuuri hits the bottle deep into the evening, while the sun draws its last rays into the sky from the window of the dining room.

Yakov Feltsman and Lilia Baranovskaya had at the very least the decency to leave an abounding wine cellar behind them prior to their departure for Moscow. A discovery he – or rather Victor – makes, when the older man ventures in the hidden depths of the house where Yuuri never dared to go during his stay. He very much doubts that with Victor back he will go past his hesitation to explore the rest of the house.

Knowing what is happening before the walls rather than behind them is enough. Rats could keep the darkest corners to themselves.

Victor resurfaces with a bottle of wine firmly clenched in his palm, a sharp contrast with the bright smile illuminating his face. He swears his features are almost similar to that of a heart, mouth wide and revealing a set of pearly white teeth. Pointy enough to be sunk into flesh and rock alike.

"What is the bottle for?" Yuuri dares to ask, wary of what is to come as Victor moves to the glass cupboard, extracting two wine glasses from a front row. They key and wood panes give easily under his nimble fingers, like he had set them there before on countless occasions. At the very least his movements exude a familiarity and knowledge that Yuuri finds himself questioning.

Victor laughs, a smooth bark that startles Yuuri from where he stands, almost breaking the serene facade he'd carved for himself and struggled to maintain since the beginning of the day. This is the first time he hears Victor laughing, an honest sound differing from his soft, childish giggles and the puffs that die into Yuuri's skin when he presses against his back, relishing this semblance of domesticity they now share.

"For celebrating of course!"

Victor nudges him slightly with an elbow as he passes him, depositing twin glasses on the table alongside the unopened bottle. A shadow must pass on Yuuri's face, for he turns to him whilst fishing for the corkscrew. The sommelier knife glints between Victor's fingers, a thin silver line that cuts through the foil in a fleeting slash. The corkscrew digs into the cork, pushing into the bark mercilessly and pulling with a wet "pop".

"Come on, don't be a spoilsport will you? Drink with me." There's no mistaking the barely-veiled amusement in his voice at the prospect of getting one of them drunk, or the both of them, just as there's an underlying threat in his words. Yuuri's ears replay the phrase like a tape, filtering the laughter and catching the curt tones suppressed by the honey of Victor's voice.

Wine swells inside the glass, waves bursting from the deep and crashing into the crystal. Foam settles at the surface, a puddle of red sea within a clear goblet. The second glass fills itself to the brim too, in a display of carelessness that astonishes Yuuri. If Lilia were there she would do more than just tut at their wine etiquette.

The bottles of beer Chris had left him are still cool in the fridge, he thinks once the bottle is set back on the low table. But surely Victor would be damned if he ever let him drink any of it for their special day. Nothing, not even wine, is too good for Yuuri.

The first glass makes its way into his hand, fingers curling around the stem, thumb and index supporting the bowl. His other hand brushes the rim, as if he were scared it would escape his grasp any moment. Victor's fingers mimic his own, without the extra hand.

"To our first day together," Victor clinks his glass against his own, the movement forces Yuuri to retract his fingers and let them fall limply at his side. Victor's free hand instantly reaches for his no sooner do the glasses chime.

Yuuri bites down the retort on his lips. This isn't technically their first day together, but he indulges him nevertheless, echoing Victor's words. "To our first day together." He forces a small smile for good measure, which seems to please Victor deeply if his answering smile is a hint.

Yuuri tilts his head, and half throws back the glass until the cool liquid hits his palate. A fruity bitterness fills his mouth and throat as he downs the wine in a few gulps, nectar lingering on his tongue. Victor watches him distractedly from the sidelines, a small chuckle on his lips at the sight of Yuuri finishing his wine in quite an improper way, whereas he had only taken a tentative gulp and inhaled the the full-bodied dress.

His wine etiquette is definitely all wrong, and he couldn't care less about it.

If Yuuri had drunk – truly drunk – during his stay, the glass he would hold in hand would most likely be a tumbler designed for whiskey or scotch, with its wide brim and thick, finely-cut base. Not to mention he would have also filled more than half of it, a scandalous breach of protocol. Like he could bring himself to care in this moment.

Yuuri doesn't wait for Victor's confirmation before he takes the bottle for himself, setting both glass and wine on top of the piano and taking his designated seat on the bench. Curious, Victor stays back to watch him, glass half-untouched in the crook of his fingers.

Yuuri tests the notes with a single hand while the other busies itself with filling his glass to the brim. Unsteady fingers almost make droplets of wine fall onto the notes and lid, the bottle stuttering its way from the rim to the top of the wood and metal monster where it is finally set back. Familiar notes drift in the air, a telltale sign that he won't have to tune the piano.

He takes a large sip, allowing the pungent liquid to sit and warm inside his mouth before swallowing it, refraining from choking given how strong the wine feels seeping into his body. His cheeks already feel a little warmer, partly from the alcohol and partly due to the room's temperature, his eyes a little heavy without his glasses on. Not that he needs them. These days he could play with his eyes closed, the sequences of black and white keys familiar underneath his fingertips. He could turn blind tomorrow and the piano would remain, whispering its secrets in his ears.

Yuuri crosses his legs, toes arched and feet crossed in pointe position under him, awaiting to be spread on the pedals. His hand joins the other on the keyboard, and he draws a deep breath into his lungs, steadying himself from the center of the bench. Movement One of Vivaldi's _Winter_ permeates the room as his fingers start to fly on the keyboard.

The tension in his shoulders loosens a little more with every note he hits, feet on the pedals, fingers spreading and reaching out in the replication of a ritual all too familiar to him. He lets the notes born from his fingering guide his motions, ears pointed in catching the sounds dying away the very moment it is struck, vanishing beyond earshot.The legato sings and glides, propels harmony forward across the keys and onto the instrument with nearly superhuman dexterity.

Blood beats against his temples, the strong wine dripping into his system and thumping at his head with every progress the music makes. The continuous leaps from one side to another takes its toll on his tired body, the exhaustion of the day dawning on him and making him slightly dizzy.

He risks a sideways glance at Makkachin. The brown poodle is out like a light, bundled in his dog bed as per usual, sleeping the remains of the afternoon away while Yuuri plays. How he doesn't wake him with his playing, he wonders.

The poodle never once barked in Victor's presence, instead choosing to rub against his legs and licking his fingers.

Traitor.

His left foot moves to the pedal but collides with something soft instead. The sudden awareness that Victor has come to stand right behind him shakes him back to reality.

The older man slides next to him on the piano bench, squeezing his way through even when the seat is theoretically large enough for the both of them to sit in. Victor leans over him, propped on the crown of his head as he plays, then shifts their position so to recline on Yuuri's left side, his right arm loops around Yuuri's shoulder to reach for the remote keys.

But he doesn't bow his head the way Yuuri does when he concentrates on his music, letting the notes draw him in, drown him in a false sense of calm and peacefulness. Instead he buries his nose in the crook of Yuuri's neck, inhales deeply the scent of his perfume. The invasion of Yuuri's personal space is nothing new, as much as he'd like to do something against it.

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, trying to shut out Victor's presence. Victor's scent, Victor's Victor's broad shoulders caging him, Victor's eyelashes fluttering under his jaw, Victor's lips nuzzling the junction where shoulder and neck meet. The clavier trembles pinned by their conjoined playing, the single notes altered and hit both harder and softer from their conflicting pitches.

His hand quivers off the keyboard when it reaches for his glass, mutely prompting Victor to take over his place. His large form pins him to the instrument, a pull complimentary to the one in his throat when he swallows the rest of his glass. The alcohol buzzes in his veins, drums through his bulky arms. Victor's breath is deliciously warm, skimming on the cool sweat gathered on his collarbone. Instinctively he leans back, exposing the expanse of pale skin of his neck. Victor's arduous playing dulls in favor of setting his attention on Yuuri's neck. While the climax of the piece reaches its end, Victor's ministrations don't intensify. If anything, there is a tenderness to them that makes Yuuri blink against the onslaught of inebriation.

He barely avoids the wrong key in the nick of time when Victor's teeth nibble none too gently at a portion of his skin. An abstract miscalculation with subtly aborted potential for disaster. A breach in their harmonious, delusional flow; the homogeneity of which he won't dare to break again.

His fingertips slip off the keys, still cold in spite of the activity, and one hand reaches back to caress Victor's cheek.

"Take me to bed, Victor."

 _"Now we've had quite a lot of candidates asking about the position, but Victor was adamant on having you here."_

Yuuri minds his wording around Victor; or rather, his lack thereof. He thinks of the romance novels both his sister and Yuuko kept around, of the headstrong but shy heroines who demanded to be made love to by their equally stubborn lovers.

"Making love", the one expression they would teach them in his English classes back in high school, the flushed cheeks of girls in bloom, flustered but all-knowing, and the snickers of boys elbowing each other.

 _"Victor used to have only female nannies, but this is the first time he's asked for a male nanny. He is quite excited to meet you, you know?"_

Whatever it is they're doing right now... this isn't making love. This isn't having sex. If anything, it's prostitution.

" _Oh but don't worry too much about it. You're younger and prettier than the others, so hopefully Victor will take a liking to you pretty quickly."_

They leave the curtains drawn and the lights on, bare for the world to see, with the moon as their witness.

Yuuri isn't so sure of what he is supposed to make of his body as Victor spreads him out on the mattress. Yuuri grasps at the sheets in an attempt to haul himself up, turn away from Victor, but his back remains firmly pressed into the bedding. Victor wordlessly insists on making love face to face.

Victor marks him with his mouth, his fingers and his eyes, drinking in every detail his blue irises can catch. His advances are excruciatingly unhurried, taking care to prepare Yuuri and focused on his body. There's a giddiness to the way his lips stutter on his collarbone and chest that reminds him of that which can only be found in virgins; he of all people would know.

Or maybe he wasn't. Lilia had talked of previous nannies, all female and quite young and pretty too – the last part she had never openly mentioned, but the comparison she'd made of him concerning the others had sparked something inside him. The memory of it churns in his guts. How was he to know he was Victor's first, and his last?

And who was he to care?

Traitorous moans escape his lips when Victor's hands linger on his hips, reaching under him to remove the last of his clothing. His skin feels hotter against his own, much too close for comfort now that they will be down to nothing.

Yuuri cards his fingers through Victor's hair, silky strands curling between the digits as the older man continues his path downhill. Once Victor parts to take off Yuuri's leggings, his own discarded long ago, he catches sight of his sex, erect and standing proud between his legs with a thick girth, the root engulfed in silver curls.

He feels his cheeks flush at the sight and turns his gaze to the moonlit plaster to distract himself from what is to come. Victor's shadow and the tree branches coiling at their window draw out a monster of the ceiling. Yuuri stares back at its burning slits, withered arms and bandy legs as Victor pounds his fingers into him, gaze empty and breath coming out in short gasps.

Do you see what you do to me, he longs to ask the monster surfacing from beneath paint and flesh. Do you see me? Do you enjoy this so much, having me under you like this, Yuuri wants to yell.

He yelps when the fingers retract, replaced by something much larger that almost tears him apart with a single thrust. Victor drowns into him with a groan, almost as if he were the one in pain, cock pulsing and swallowed whole by Yuuri's tight walls.

Victor doesn't sound like a child when he takes him. Only guttural noises escape him when he's on top of him, devouring him with his hands and lips and tongue. Yuuri digs his nails into the meat of his back as Victor rams into him, the bed creaking under their weight and the violence of Victor's thrusts.

His pace quickens and Yuuri's toes dig into the mattress, knees caging Victor's hips. He plunges into him back and forth, creating friction between their bodies that makes Yuuri grit his teeth. Victor takes notice of it and pushes back his head harshly, his mouth colliding against Yuuri's and forcing the betraying noises out of him.

Yuuri screams when Victor twists his wrist around him, making him come and throwing him back agains the pillow. Victor follows suit not longer after, biting hard into the pillow and scratching the sheets enough to tear them both as he releases inside him. He falls onto Yuuri, heavily panting and mouthing at Yuuri's breast, head resting over his frantically-beating heart. Yuuri wraps his arms around him, messing the silver locks with his fingers.

Now that his bed – their bed – has been christened, he wonders whether this is really the end or just their beginning.

Victor kisses his ear in the morning when he is busy at the counter preparing their breakfast. The light nibble, though mirthful, comes with a half-lidded gaze on his person that seems overly fond.

Yuuri accepts gracefully the brush of lips on his own while his gaze strays back to the window. The greenery stutters in the distance, a sign of forthcoming movement. Victor's tongue pries into his open mouth as a car penetrates the estate in the distance, haltingly pushing in the driveway.

Yuuri reaches for the knife from behind Victor's back as he leans into the kiss.

They don't stand a chance.


End file.
